Recap / Animaniacs (2020) Episode 7

Release date: November 20, 2020

Final episode of season 1, part 1.

Opening line: (Dot) "Execs must by crazy!"

Warner She Wrote: Hercule Yakko attempts to solve a dog-napping on a train.

France France Revolution: In 18th century France, the Warners try to bum free cake off Marie Antoinette and accidentally start the French Revolution.

Gift Rapper: The Warners end up on a music video set, and when the MC states himself to be better than Shakespeare, Yakko decides to school him.

Tropes found in "Warner She Wrote":

• Added Alliterative Appeal: When the train conductor (who has a tic of mixing up his "M" words) reveals himself to be the dog napper, and Wakko asks why he did it:
  Conductor: Why? I'll tell you why. A mop that mummified merrily missed Mississippi on the black mamba!
  Wakko and Dot: What?
  Yakko: Hold on. I think I know what he's trying to say. "A mutt that manicured might make millions on the black market".
  Wakko and Dot: Oh.
• Commercial Break Cliffhanger: The first half of the segment ends with the train crashing in the middle of the night sending everyone, including Yakko, Wakko, and Dot falling over and everything going black. We don't see if the kids survive until after the ads by Hulu play, which makes sense since Hulu runs ads to during their shows to make money. By the end of the ads, it's revealed that Yakko, Wakko, and Dot survived the crash.
• Curse Cut Short: When Margaret says "monster trucker," Wakko almost says he meant "motherfucker," but gets cut off by Yakko, telling him to not say it in front of the kids.
• Eating Pet Food: Gigi's owner eats her dog food, much to the disgust of the Warners.
  Dot: Euw! The people you meet on public transportation...
• Hair-Trigger Avalanche: Yakko's shout of frustration at not being able to sleep causes an avalanche that holds up the train.
• Mister Muffykins: Gigi is a large, noisy, and bad-tempered poodle.
• Mystery Episode: The Warners must solve the mystery of who stole Gigi.
• No Fourth Wall: Even more than usual. The trio notes the Call-Back to a classic episode and complains about the skit having too much set-up and not enough jokes. Yakko also completely forgets the name of his character and can’t be bothered to hide it.
• Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: To Murder, She Wrote.
• Public Bathhouse Scene: Parodied in Wakko's alibi. Wakko took a bath in the punchbowl.
• Shout-Out: When the Warners “tear the room apart” looking for evidence, they uncover Excalibur, the Holy Grail, a can of Soylent Green-brand People Flakes, Rosebud, the ruby slippers, the desiccated corpse of Norman Bates’ mother, and the Maltese Falcon.
  Wakko: Finding anything?
  Dot: (holding up a net full of fish) Just a bunch of red herrings.
• Stage Magician: In Dot's alibi, she was performing a magic trick for a moose.
• Thriller on the Express: The episode plays out like a murder mystery and it takes place on a train.
• Visual Pun: Wakko's bath in the punchbowl, along with other passengers forming a line.
  Passenger: Ahem, this punchline is taking far too long.
• Verbal Tic: The conductor keeps getting his m-words mixed up.

Tropes found in "France France Revolution":

• Balloon Belly: Yakko and Wakko temporarily get this after eating up most of Marie Antoinette's cakes.
• Black Comedy: King Louie XVI warns Marie not to stick her head out of the carriage, otherwise she would be decapitated. Now consider what happened to her in real life. In the end, Yakko says that the French Revolution will be a pain in the neck for her.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Marie Antoinette sentences the Warners to death for stealing her food.
• Food Porn: The Warners' sumptuous descriptions of the food at Versailles not only save them from execution, but drives the people of Paris to kick off the French Revolution.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, is a spoiled Royal Brat who eats delicious cakes while her people starve.
• Gross-Up Close-Up: Dot gets an eyeful of Marie Antoinette's dirty fingernails.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: Marie Antoinette is a little cattier and selfish here than she was in real life. She was spoiled certainly, but as far as we know she didn't sentence "peasants" to death for eating her cake.
• Not Hyperbole: Dot says she's hungry enough to eat a horse, and eyes an emaciated horse that nervously backs away.
• Overly Pre-Prepared Gag: This short is essentially a seven-minute setup to get Marie Antoinette to say "Let them eat cake!" (which she never actually said in real life). The entire premise and the ending is very similar to "The Three Muskewarners".
• Shout-Out: The title is a reference to DanceDanceRevolution.
• Villainous Glutton: Marie Antoinette is almost always seen chomping down on cakes. Despite this, she has a slim figure.
• Visual Pun: Yakko offers the queen a "hand" getting out of the carriage, and his hand comes off when she takes it.

Tropes found in "Gift Rapper":

• Battle Rapping: Yakko ends up challenging JayPac to a rap battle for dissing William Shakespeare.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: JayPac says Good Night Everybody.
• The Cameo: The DJ is revealed to have been a robotic suit piloted by Pinky and the Brain, who didn't have a proper skit this episode. That may be a call-back to "Sir Yaksalot", where a monstrous dragon terrorizing a kingdom is also revealed to be the mice in disguise as part of one of Brain's schemes.
• Crossover Punchline: The DJ is revealed to be Pinky and The Brain. If anything, this is the first episode of Animaniacs after 22 years where the Warners and Pinky and the Brain appear together on-screen for the first time. Many fans argued that it was a Pinky and The Brain skit the whole time, but it centered around the Warners.
• Graceful Loser: JayPac offers Yakko a fist bump after losing the rap battle.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Pinky specifically refers back to a non-sequitur joke that was made in their segment in the prior episode (related to deadmau5) that would have been more appropriate for this segment.
• Pet the Dog: The Warners save JayPac from a giant microphone that Yakko drops.
• Mic Drop: Parodied when Yakko's second rap ends with him dropping a series of increasingly massive microphones.
• Shout-Out:
  • Brain makes a reference to Danger Mouse.
  • The rapper's name JayPac is an amalgam of Jay-Z and Tupac, and he wears Kanye West's trademark "shutter shades". The robotic DJ in a suit and tie could be a reference to Daft Punk.
  • During the rap battle, JayPac says Wakko is "less likable than Elmyra."

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