Trivia / Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain

• Accidentally-Correct Writing: In "Gee, Your Hair Spells Terrific", while trying to clone a Tyrannosaurus rex, Brain mentions he and Pinky will convince the public that dinosaur meat Tastes Like Chicken. 2007 saw the discovery of Tyrannosaurus proteins which are similar to... chickens.
• Channel Hop: More like block/program hop. It originally aired as a standalone program, but its low ratings caused the show (and premieres) to be moved to a compilation program called The Big Cartoonie Show where it aired with Animaniacs, the original Pinky and the Brain, The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, and (for the first four episodes) Looney Tunes shorts for the rest of its run. When The Big Cartoonie Show went into its second season, the show was dropped entirely.
• Creator Backlash: During the show's own theme song, no less! It's understandable, however, as the staff and most of the cast did not approve of this change in direction from the outset.
• Creator Killer: The series, plus the rising popularity of Pokémon on Kids WB, ended Steven Spielberg and Tom Ruegger's partnership which had begun with Tiny Toon Adventures. Ruegger and many of his collaborators for these shows, such as Sherri Stoner and Paul Rugg, struggled to find work for a few years after.
• Exiled from Continuity: Tom Ruegger officially confirmed on Twitter that the retool is non-canon. His word stuck with the 2020 revival of Animaniacs, which ignores the events of this show with its Time Skip.
• Franchise Killer: Before the Retool, Pinky and the Brain was a mega hit shown on prime time. Five episodes later, it was cancelled. It also wound up being the last collaborative work between Warner Bros. Animation and Amblin Entertainment as a result up until the Animaniacs revival.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • This was the fate of the show for the longest time before finally getting a complete DVD release in 2014. Due to the show's reputation, many would be fine if it were to stay unreleased.
  • Before the show was released on DVD, one of the worst offenders episode-wise was "Yule Be Sorry." It only aired one time during the Christmas season following the show's premiere and wasn't repackaged for The Big Cartoonie Show, making it one of the rarest Kids' WB airings of all time.
• Kids' Meal Toy: A set of four toys were offered in Hardee's kids' meals in 1999.
• Recycled Script: A similar concept was later used in the Animaniacs 2020 reboot with the segment Starbox and Cindy.
• Technology Marches On: One episode has Brain planning to switch the background music of an amusement park ride with a subliminal message he recorded using audio cassettes as the medium. At the time the series aired, tapes were experiencing their last breath of relevance as compact disk (briefly) was becoming the most popular music format.
• Writer Revolt: The writers were extremely dissatisfied with Steven Spielberg's idea of creating Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain. Peter Hastings not only wrote the episode "You'll Never Eat Food Pellets in This Town Again", but he later left Warner Bros. altogether to create One Saturday Morning.

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