YMMV / Animaniacs (2020)

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Pinky is shown as single, despite the fact that he had a girlfriend in the original series. Did he and Pharfignewton break up, or did he know she had gotten (apparently) killed and stuffed by Walter C. Grubb? If he didn't, did he think the horse ghosted him? Maybe he went into therapy not just for Brain's relationship with him but also if he was mourning his girlfriend.
    • Pinky’s relationship status being taken was never a constant. Barring an out-of-universe role in Wakko's Wish, she was only referenced once more in the original Animaniacs in "The World Can Wait." In the spin-off series, Pharfignewton was referenced only in the Season 1 episode “The Third Mouse” as well as the Season 3 episode "A Meticulous Analysis of History." Later on in another Season 3 episode which takes place after these, "Operation Sea-Lion", Pinky falls in love with a sea-lion. And in the comics, he had a short-lived relationship with Snowball's sister that caused Brain and Snowball to put aside their differences long enough to try and break them up so they wouldn't have to be around each other anymore.
  • Yakko near the end of "Good Warner Hunting". He claims that Chicken Boo is the least popular character on the show and that he's on the "bottom of every fan list" despite the existence of less popular characters (i.e. Katie Kaboom) and the fact that Boo did have his fans. Was Yakko just voicing his opinion or was he exaggerating Chicken Boo's unpopularity to make him reveal himself?
  • In "France France Revolution". Was Marie Antoinette really going to have the Warners executed for eating her food? She never outright says she's going to execute them. Also, the guards only take the Warners to the stocks suggesting they may have only been sentenced to public humiliation (and are only using the guillotine to cut cake).
  • The first Pinky and the Brain short establishes that 22 years have passed in-universe. Is Brain's new, more villainous demeanor out of character, or have decades of failure hardened him to the point of doubling his efforts while forgetting his goal of making the world a better place? Maurice LaMarche favors the latter interpretation.
  • Dot dissing the Loonatics during "Suffragette City". Is she indeed dissing them or does she genuinely have no idea what they are?
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: One of the donuts Wakko has in "WhoDonut" is squid-ink flavored. While this may seem strange to many Western viewers, squid ink is commonly used as food coloring in many Asian countries.
• Americans Hate Tingle: If the now-disabled comments on this video were anything to go by, some Russian viewers are not exactly fans of how the show satirizes Russia... not because it shows them in a negative light, but because most of the jokes (aside from a few references to Putin and oligarchs) are just repackaged Cold War-era jokes about the Soviet Union that have little to do with the country today. Commentary about the modern Russian government and its relationship with the US does increase later on though.
• Angst? What Angst?: Yakko, Wakko, and Dot aren't shown being angry or sad that the recurring characters of the original series (long time coworkers) aren't in the reboot.
• Anvilicious:
  • The show itself lampshaded how "bun control" was a heavy handed and thinly veiled jab allegory for gun control.
  • "Pinko and the Brain" emphasizes that you must always stand up to Insane Troll Logic persecution with a really heavy-handed Red Scare analogies. Notably, it's one of the few episodes where even Pinky is super-uncomfortable with Brain starting an anti-mouse campaign while posing as a US senator, and telling him it's a bad idea. We see images of children being arrested, and Congress shaking in fear about being accused. Brie ends up being the Only Sane Woman who stands up to Brain and turns his own logic against him by saying that accusing her of being a mouse due to her being named after cheese is stupid because cheese is an American staple, so Brain must not be patriotic. Even Brain seems to admit that he went too far when they're busted and fleeing, telling Pinky it wasn't his fault for cracking under pressure.
  • The show really pounds it into your head how much the writers don't like Trump in "Rome Sweet Rome".
  • "Global Warnering" about climate change, lampshaded with the "Preachy Ending Warning".
• Audience-Alienating Ending: When the final episode first dropped in February 2023, many people saw the "Everybody Dies" Ending where the Warners lament that their contract hasn't been renewed while a Flaming Meteor is about to kill all of mankind as an incredibly cruel form of Torch the Franchise and Run that greatly took away from the show's sense of satirical escapism. Even after Word of God confirmed that the Warners survived the meteor, most of the discussion surrounding the show after it wrapped up consisted of nothing but discussing how much of a mean-spirited Downer Ending it has.
• Awesome Music: Well duh, it's Animaniacs; it's all catchy. However, they also do some new stuff:
  • The Episode 7 segment "Gift Rapper" has Yakko engaging in a rap battle with a rapper named "JayPac", first doing a verse in a Shakespearean style a la the Regular Show episode "Rap it Up" that tears apart the bravado of rap, then doing a second, more straight verse full of callbacks to jokes and catchphrases from the original show. JayPac himself, despite being a parody, ain't too bad either.
  • Steven Spielberg insisted that the revival use a full orchestra like the original series, and hired back two of the original composers, Steve and Julie Bernstein, to write the music and lead the orchestra. Needless to say, even fans who say "They Changed It, Now It Sucks!" about every other aspect of the reboot have no complaints about the musical scores.
  • The musical number from "Warner's Ark" is a big band ditty about finding where an egg came from (it ends up being Chicken Boo) sung by the Warners and a slew of mythological creatures including Benedict from "How to Brain Your Dragon". It's bouncy, fun, energetic, and makes you feel like dancing.
  • "Rome, Sweet Rome" features a Major General Song that’s just as catchy and fun as the one from the original series.
  • "Rug of War!"'s musical number about William the Conqueror is just plain good in general.
  • "Yakko's Big Idea" is a bombastic, up-tempo showtune, and has been universally praised for its visuals and Rob Paulsen's vocal performance.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • Near the end of "Gift Rapper", a cheering fan explodes for no reason. Everyone appears surprised... then they turn away like nothing happened.
  • The "Animeniacs" turn out to be this in context. Rather than a sketch parodying anime in general as assumed, they appear in a 90-second segment in the middle of an otherwise normal allegory about gun control, and are forgotten just as quickly as the main conflict gets back on track.
• Broken Base:
  • The new segments. You either love or hate the absurdity of the Incredible Gnome in People's Mouths, and Starbox & Cindy is either seen as a boring rehash of an already-done concept, or said concept done right. In other words, they're either Replacement Scrappies for Slappy Squirrel and the Goodfeathers or More Popular Replacements for the Hip Hippos and Katie KaBoom.
  • As for the absence of the older characters, Hello Nurse seems to stand out a lot: is getting rid of her for good because of her looks or should she have returned with her stereotype-breaking Character Development from the original show's later seasons and Wakko's Wish as a strong, intelligent, independent woman? Tom Ruegger has sided with the latter group, saying that if he were to be brought back, he would've had Hello Nurse replace Thaddeus Plotz as the CEO of Warner Bros. rather than create Nora Rita Norita.
  • Over time, the show itself has become divisive. One camp considers it an excellent reboot that still has the charm of the original, a second one considers it to be So Okay, It's Average, as it does have good things but it's nothing to write home about, while a third camp dislikes it for its more cynical tone, the way the Warners are written, the lack of slapstick and especially the absence of the other characters like Slappy Squirrel. What all three camps agree with is that the reboot doesn't hold a candle to the original, while the Pinky and The Brain segments are generally well-liked.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Chicken Boo tried to self-destruct the franchise by killing anyone who could return to the reboot. The Warners are sympathetic about his reasons why — he was contractually banned from returning— but they also are horrified that he killed innocent Toons, and mounted Mindy and Skippy on his trophy wall. They try chasing him, but Yakko stops his siblings and smirks. He says Chicken Boo will get his comeuppance. Sure enough, when Chicken Boo tries to walk away, he hears angry footsteps and growling. Behind him, all of the formerly-dead and silly Toons — including a Mama Bear Slappy Squirrel, Hair-Trigger Temper Katie Ka-Boom, who is Chicken Boo's ex to boot, and the Goodfeathers with Squit leading them in a Death Glare— promise to bring on pain. Chicken Boo goes Oh, Crap! and runs off as they all chase him. Buttons is one of the only ones that don't because he's protecting Mindy, but they look tempted to follow. 
  • Sometimes, Brain invites Laser-Guided Karma into his shorts when he goes too far. Pinky even notes it occasionally.
    • In "Pinko and the Brain", Brie utterly humiliates him and Pinky during a Congressional hearing against her. When Brain says that her being named for a cheese proves that she must be a mouse, Brie smirks. She says that cheese is an American staple and downright patriotic. Then she browbeats Pinky into confessing the truth. Brain can only tell Pinky it wasn't his fault that he cracked, as they're fleeing for their lives.
    • In "Mousechurian Candidate", Brain has genetically altered his "wife" Julia and sees her as a mere pawn for becoming a senator and later a governor. When Julia flips the script and tells him he could be a nicer mouse, Brain responds by trying to brainwash her with a faulty Mind-Control Device, which turns her into a feral monster and costs them both the election. The catharsis is that Julia somehow regains her sapience and is monitoring Brain, ostensibly for revenge; in addition, Pinky is putting salt into Brain's coffee, which is a natural emetic that makes the drinker throw up. You can't blame Julia for looking smug and going for Pass the Popcorn. Indeed, Julia's next two appearances have her going after Brain.
• Crosses the Line Twice: "Catch Up" features Russian robots hacking the 2016 US election. The robots later do a can-can dance as part of the big finale. It's so ridiculous that you can't help but laugh.
• Crossover Ship: It has become popular among some fans, particularly on Tumblr, to ship Yakko with Max Goof.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The Warner Siblings' Animesque designs from Episode 4 gained instant approval from the fanbase due to how amazing they looked. Probably helped that Yakko's design reminded everyone of Kamina.
  • In regards to characters, Nora Rita Norita, the new CEO of Warner Bros. Studios, has become pretty popular due to being a sexy businesswoman, while still carrying a sense of humor under her stuffy exterior.
  • Julia has been likened to Snowball, but with the potential to be A Lighter Shade of Grey to the Brain instead of an Evil Counterpart, and many have expressed interest in seeing her return as an antagonist and rival to Brain in the same manner as Snowball. She does so in Seasons 2 and 3.
  • Benedict the Dragon from the Pinky and the Brain segment "How to Brain Your Dragon" has also managed to gain a noticeable following (which isn't too surprising when you think about it), to the point that many are just as interested in seeing him reappear in potential future episodes as Julia. Like Julia, he indeed returns in Season 2, albeit in a cameo.
  • The Animator from "Yakko Amakko" has a pretty sizable following thanks to her reenacting one of the most beloved Looney Tunes shorts, being a rare example of Nancy Cartwright voicing a new (and female, for once) character, her Odd Friendship with Yakko that amounts to trolling the entire Warner Studio, and of course, her design.
• Fanon:
  • Some on Twitter have also headcanoned that Nora Rita Norita is married to Hello Nurse from the original series. Cora’s lack of a father and the fact that Hello Nurse was never shown to be in a relationship in the original series add to this.
  • Did Mr. Plotz pass away, or did he retire? Despite "Wakkiver Twist" showing his return, it is a non-canon parody.
  • Another big one is Pinky & the Brain being a gay couple, considering how much Ho Yay they have in the series.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • The reboot's fandom has found some common ground with Crash Bandicoot's own base ever since Twitter artist Alayna Gray made an adorable artwork depicting Wakko and Crash together, due to sharing the same voice actor Jess Harnell. The fandoms also take advantage of their respective series' successful Soft Reboots in 2020, along with their Looney Tunes inspirations.
  • Fans of Sam & Max have started to overlap with fans of the show. It helps that the franchises have very similar styles of humor, in addition to the remastered version of Sam & Max Save the World coming out around the same time that the Animaniacs reboot did.
  • With the Netflix original series, Hilda, thanks to the show tying with the Netflix animated series for the Daytime Emmy Award for "Outstanding Editing in a Children's TV Series". Why? Both shows featuring a Power Trio? Check! Going on zany and wild adventures and never letting anything get in their way? Double check! Looks like Yakko, Wakko, and Dot have found some new friends to bring with on their adventures. Fans of Hilda also flocked over to the 2020 reboot for a breather show after witnessing Hilda 's sudden Season 2 cliffhanger. In addition, a second season of Animaniacs has dropped in 2021 while Hilda and the Mountain King premiered on December 30th, 2021. By then, Animaniacs Season 2 is already streaming so that fans can have one heck of a breather after watching one heck of a wham-movie.
    • It is also Hilarious in Hindsight when the second season of both shows ended on a surprise cliffhanger.
  • With the upcoming [adult swim] series, Pibby. After the trailer for the series dropped with massive critical acclaim, fans began creating Pibby-themed edits of the monstrous glitchy blob invading the Warners' world, infecting the Warners and other characters. Fans have also created fan-art of the Warners taking part in the battle with Pibby, herself, to stop the glitch from taking over.
• Genius Bonus:
  • Odysseus in Animaniacs gives into hubris and splashes water all over the Warner gods just because they're "nerds", leading to them tormenting him. The actual mythological Odysseus wasn't able to return home for twenty years after the war for similar reasons, that his hubris was too strong and he angered the gods.
  • Wakko hits upon the idea to ask Australia for help dealing with "bun violence". In addition to enacting strong gun control laws (since the short is an allegory toward guns and gun violence), Australia had to deal with an ecological disaster caused by rabbits and their uncontrolled breeding.
  • B.R.A.I.N. tells a joke about French philosopher René Descartes saying "I think not" and disappearing. He's best known for the phrase "I think, therefore I am."
  • The recurring Butt-Monkey Egwind being a third mouse to Pinky & the Brain and getting killed in every appearance is a joke about how back in the original '90s show, the WB executives demanded that a new character should join Pinky & the Brain (which eventually resulted in the episode "Pinky and the Brain...and Larry" and the non-canon Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain).
  • In "Bride of Pinky", Dr. Brainenstein says that his castle was built by masons expert in the most advanced techniques of "wall-stone craft". This is a reference to Frankenstein author Mary Wollstonecraft's maiden name, before she married Percy Shelley.
• Growing the Beard:
  • Within the first season itself. Some critics feel that the first few episodes are lackluster and somewhat too caustic, but the humor improves and the cynicism decreases in later episodes. The exact turning point is "Good Warner Hunting", which is all about lampshading why the Warners and Pinky and the Brain are the only ones carrying the reboot and they learn Chicken Boo was attempting to murder all the Toons to kill the show out of revenge.
  • The second season is seen as being better than the first, even Rob Paulsen said before the show released the first season is "hit or miss" while the second is better. The Pinky & the Brain segments in particular are more experimental and feel like episodes of the spin-off, there are more musical numbers, characters like Nora and Dr. Scratchansniff get more screen time, and the format of the show is more like the original. There are also way less political jokes (with some exceptions like "Rome Sweet Rome") and meta jokes about being a reboot than the first season.
  • The third season is probably considered to be the best one, as many fans felt it now actually felt more like what Animaniacs should be, with many entertaining plot lines, the characters acting like themselves again, and not to mention the numerous references and cameos of the other characters, especially the return of Slappy Squirrel in the final episode.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • This parody short released five years before the Reboot pretty much predicted The Brain's origin story.
  • The song about television show reboots mentions the 2017 reboot of DuckTales (1987) (at the time of the show's writing, a year old), when only a few days after the premiere of this show, it was announced that the 2017 DuckTales would be ending after three seasons. Later on, this show would suffer the same fate.
  • Steven Spielberg tells Dr. Grant and Sattler that he is bringing back Pinky and the Brain as well as the Warners. Dr. Grant needs to sit down and calm himself from an anxiety attack in excitement. A few episodes later, the show reveals that the Warners and mice were the only major characters brought back to headline shorts; Dot comments that they seem to be carrying the weight of the reboot and realizes the Hollywood lot is empty. Cue Dr. Walter Grubb revealing he hunted down and stuffed all the Toons out of revenge for not being included; he was Chicken Boo in disguise. Fortunately, the ending of "Good Warner Hunting" hints that the rest of the cast may return; you can see Minerva, Buttons and Mindy, Katie Kaboom, and Rita and Runt among the mob glaring at Chicken Boo.
  • A lightning round of it caused by Production Lead Time. The first episode has a gag that seems to have been intended to reference the Johnny Johnny Yes Papa videos, with a poster showing Johnny Depp starring in a film called "Johnny 2: Telling Lies"^note Relevant lyrics from the Johnny Johnny Yes Papa videos: "Johnny Johnny / Yes Papa? / Eating sugar? / No Papa! / Telling lies?". This apparently being intended as a meme reference is underscored by immediately following the "Telling Lies" poster with one for "Johnny: The Beginning" that features what appears to be a baby in the style of Johnny Johnny Yes Papa eating sugar. Unfortunately, while the meme reference was relevant in 2018 when the episode was written, plenty of people didn't catch it in 2020, instead believing the "Telling Lies" title was accusing Depp of lying about being a victim of domestic abuse, leading to cries of poor taste.
  • Wakko's Russian bootleg counterpart from "Anima-Nyet" describing Ukraine (among other nations) as part of Russia and thinking about starting World War III became this when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
  • Season 2 ends with Ralph the Security Guard becoming the Chairman of the Board over Warner Brothers. His ideas promptly shake up the company causing their profits to tank while Ralph chases after his poor ideas. Only a year later in real life Warner Bros. Discovery was founded, and new CEO David Zaslav would tank the company's valuation in a desperate attempt to reduce debt via rapidly cancelling and vaulting various film and TV projects.
  • The series was cancelled while Season 3 was late in the production cycle, causing the show to go for the rushed Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies ending scene. This is even harsher though in the many episodes leading up to the finale having characters joking about "appearing in Season 4" making it seem like the series had been attempting to negotiate for a fourth season before getting the final cancelation notice, and had left in the jokes about a Season 4 just as ominous foreshadowing for the finale.
  • Related to this, both Starbox And Cindy and Pinky and the Brain end with effective cliffhangers, with the latter having Julia return as a flat out Distaff Counterpart to Brain, since, similar to DuckTales (2017), the production team were still laying groundwork for what they assumed was a guaranteed Season 4.
  • The even more painful thing? The "...see our new contracts" line has a Freeze-Frame Bonus Take That! to the early cancellation, when it instead of 3 New Seasons it has 2 and 10/13, implying that the season itself was Cut Short!
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • "The Catch-Up Song" does this a lot since, as they plainly admit, the song was written in 2018, thus they have no idea what would happen in 2019 or 2020. Oddly, they do get it right with the worsening natural disasters (which admittedly was not that hard to predict, though reality did not feature volcano eruptions when the first season was released.^note Though Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano experienced a notable eruption the following month.) And, in a moment of reality catching up with a wild - and at the time of writing probably completely ridiculous and impossible-sounding - conjecture for the sake of comedy, they predicted that we would have to wear masks and live in bunkers in 2020 (though in the song, it's because we're being hunted by vengeful polar bears), as well as the part about everyone not leaving their house because they can get everything they need to be delivered.
    • Depending on how bad the pandemic death toll situation is and how harsh the lockdown restrictions are in your country/area at the time when you watch the show, this song can come down on the side of Fridge Brilliance or of Harsher in Hindsight or be both in equal measure...
    • Plus, Yakko is sent onto this tangent in the first place by saying they don't know if Donald Trump would still be the President, with the season set to be released shortly after the 2020 election. As it turned out, Trump was defeated in that election, but at the time of release was refusing to concede and trying to get the result overturned, insisting it was rigged. (And, regardless of the outcome, Trump's term had not ended at release time anyway. Though this could be a reference to the possibility that Trump would be removed from office by impeachment, and he was indeed impeached in November 2019 — and again in January 2021 — but was not removed from office as a result.)
  • Similarly, "Suffragette City" which features a cameo from Buster and Babs Bunny would have been made at least a year before 2020. As right before the Animaniacs revival premiered a reboot of Tiny Toon Adventures was announced, it ends up making the two's cameo quite prophetic.
  • The disparaging cameo from the Loonatics Unleashed gang in the same episode is also pretty funny considering the audience went wild over the Warners' own Animesque superpowered reimaginings. Rubs salt in the wound, eh, Ace?
  • The Warners confronting foreign copycats of themselves and singing a song about how being original is better than copying others becomes absolutely side-splitting when you realize The Amazing World of Gumball did the exact same thing first with their episode "The Copycats". Even with the Production Lead Time, "The Copycats" came out in 2017, a full year before the Animaniacs episode would have been written.
  • In "Warners Unbound", Odysseus is sent to Hades and treats it like a Ninja Warrior course, causing the Warners to say "Is he trying to win at Hades?" Due to the delay between writing and release of the episode, a game called Hades was actually released about a month before the episode, and players had complained it's Nintendo Hard. You can win at Hades, but only with a lot of hard work.
  • Ikue Otani, the voice of Pikachu, voiced Dot in the short-lived Japanese dub of the original series. Here, one of the Pokémon anime dub voice actors, Zeno Robinson, voiced JayPac in "Gift Rapper". It's a case of reverse franchise dubbing.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech on comparing Putin's hairline to global influence in "The Pinktator" became this as Ukraine Invasion in 2022 accelerated the decline of Russia's reputation and influence (both from atrocities and the abysmal failure in its first month that led to its bloody stalemate).
  • The episode WARnerGAMES has Wakko playing a game very similar to Super Smash Bros., showing off a pair of sisters who are obvious expies of Mario and Luigi (with the color scheme of a different pair of siblings). The Donkey Kong expy has the name Jackass Monkey. What makes it this trope is that back in the 80s there was a bootleg of the original Donkey Kong arcade game called... "Monkey Donkey".
• Ho Yay:
  • Brain attempts to first hug and then kiss a heartbroken Pinky's tears away in "Bride of Pinky" after the latter is left at the altar, but he loses his nerve before he can go through with either. When Pinky notices, he brightens up immediately and goes in for a hug, only for Brain to flinch and tell him, "Don't."
  • In "WhoDonut", Yakko and Dot go on a double date with two bats, one male and one female. Yakko is positioned across from the male bat, while Dot is positioned across from the female one.
  • Honestly, you could give Pinky and Brain an entire page as of Season 2.
  • The title card for "The Flawed Couple" features wedding-topper versions of Pinky and Brain, with Brain dressed as the husband and Pinky as the wife.
  • Following the above, the first two failed pilots for Pinky and the Brain explicitly cast them as wife and husband, respectively.
  • "Mouse Congeniality" has Pinky dress in drag to enter a beauty pageant as part of one of Brain's schemes. To quote him, "With your love and support, I'm sure I can do it!" Brain quickly rebukes this, but let's be honest, the damage was done for the shippers.
  • When Brain makes a sarcastic remark at the beginning of "Happy Narfday", Pinky reminds him to "Save the jokes for eight, will you darling?"
  • At the end of "Happy Narfday", Brain tucks Pinky into bed, complete with a tender hug. According to one of the crew members, however, this was originally a goodnight KISS.
  • In "Plight of Hand", after the helicopter crash, Brain finds Pinky lying on the ground, appearing to be dead. He starts to cry, then audibly kisses his hand and caresses Pinky's cheek with it.
  • During "Reichenbrain Falls", Pinky calls Brain "babe" while telling him not to interrupt. It wasn't the real Pinky, just Julia in disguise, but it must be pointed out that being called "babe" didn't raise Brain's suspicions, implying that's normal for Pinky. Julia also no longer harbors such feelings for Brain, so presumably she also did it as part of the Pinky act.
  • "Narf Over Troubled Water" has Pinky and Brain run away to Paris together after they reunite. A tablecloth even rips in such a way that it looks like Brain is wearing a wedding veil. The kicker? The entire scene is a re-enactment of the ending of The Graduate. And yes, it's complete with the classic homage shot.
  • Wakko is willing to seduce Beastwipe to escape from The Game Come to Life in "Warner Games".
  • "International Mouse of Mystery" has Pinky dressed as Brain's Bond girl and attempting to kiss him.
• Jerkass Woobie: Julia. She's trying to kill Brain, but only because his attempt to manipulate her with a faulty Mind-Control Device drove her crazy. Even Brain eventually admits that he mistreated Julia.
• LGBT Fanbase: The reboot has specifically gained a fandom of young LGBTQ+ people. The theme song references gender-neutral pronouns (albeit in a highly tongue-in-cheek fashion), the "Reboot It" song mentions famous LGBTQ+ shows like Will & Grace and Queer Eye, and Pinky and the Brain have more Ho Yay than ever.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • "Good Warner Hunting" has us believe the hunter has hunted and killed almost every supporting character from the original series, only to be revealed at the end of the segment that they're all alive and well. It's also a collective He's Back! and She's Back moment; Slappy Squirrel, the Goodfeathers (yes, Squit too), and Katie Kaboom are all ready to kick some butt.
  • In "Bun Control", they solve the overabundance of buns on the Warner lot by calling Australia, who drop in a bunch of dingoes. Initially, it looks like the dingoes are going to eat all the buns, but really, they're just doing a buyback program for all the buns.
• Memetic Mutation: Has its own page alongside the original series.
• Moe: Isn't Cindy just the cutest? The fact that her lines are actually recorded by a little girl helps.
  • Wakko and Pinky are just as adorable as they were in the original series.
  • Say what you want about Chicken Boo, but you have to admit his baby form in "Warner's Ark" is pretty damn cute.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Dwayne LaPistol, the villain in "Bun Control", crosses it by trying to drown the Warners in buns when they rightly point out that these are too many bunnies for one Hollywood lot.
  • Dr. Walter Grubb aka Chicken Boo (!!!) crosses it when it's revealed he stuffed and mounted every Animaniacs character, including children like Skippy and Mindy, along with countless other innocent toons if you look closely, because he was expressly forbidden in the reboot contract to return. He almost says that if he couldn't appear, then no one could, even if it meant he killed the franchise. If anything he ought to have taken revenge on the studio executives rather than the relatively innocent Toons. Heck, even the Warners are disgusted if sympathetic when they realize it. Alleviated a bit when it's revealed none of the supposedly killed characters are actually dead, but the context is still pretty scary.
  • B.R.A.I.N., Brain's robotic "son" in "Ex Mousina", crosses it by trying to murder his "father" and Pinky when the former verbally opposes him taking over the world.
• More Popular Replacement: Some have stated that the new segment Starbox and Cindy is better than the more mean-spirited Buttons and Mindy shorts from the original.
  • A YouTube comment had this to say:
    Commenter: I'll take this over Katie Kaboom!
  • Starbox and Cindy has also been commonly compared to Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain, largely by saying it took that show's premise but did it right.
• Older Than They Think:
  • The song "A Zit!" features Kevin Michael Richardson as a talking zit. It may seem original, but he voiced a talking zit once before in a season 4 episode of Family Guy. Coincidentally, the showrunner Wellesley Wild was a writer on Family Guy.
  • "Starbox and Cindy" isn't just a retool of the general concept behind Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain — Elmyra actually kept an alien prisoner as one of her pets on that show!
• Once Original, Now Common: Openly referenced in the theme song: "The trolls will say we're so passé, but we did meta first." There were indeed quite a few complaints about the show being too political, when the original version did just as much if not more, and it's just that the fans are old enough to understand it now. In fairness, the airings of the original show did allow the topical jokes to be spread apart and weren't that frequent. Since this is streaming and seasons are fully uploaded right from the off, it's more than likely just fatigue watching back-to-back episodes and not giving enough time for the jokes to settle.
• Popular with Furries:
  • Benedict the Dragon from the Pinky and the Brain segment "How to Brain Your Dragon" has already gotten this reaction from scalies.
  • Another character from the Pinky and the Brain segments, Julia, has received as much of a following among standard furries for her design, humble personality (at first), and her character arc of Morality Pet-turned-Femme Fatale.
  • The Animesque Dot from "Bun Control" got this big-time. The reason's pretty obvious.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Chicken Boo was always a divisive character, mainly due to the stock formula of the shorts and him being one-dimensional. So how do you help him make one hurrah in the season? Have him up his disguise game, complete with speaking as a human, and being the Big Bad who poses a legitimate threat to the Warners; he's even completely able to lie that he has a loving wife, fooling Dot with the wedding ring. Chicken Boo also has a poignant moment when crying as the Warners read aloud that he was the least popular character, even below Katie Kaboom and the Hip Hippos. When pointing out he wanted to be a part of the reboot because it's not his fault the animators made him so shallow, he's completely right.
• The Scrappy: Many people weren't exactly endeared by Cora, Nora Rita Norita's teenaged daughter, mainly for being a very obnoxious spoiled brat in her debut episode "My Super Sour Sixteen" who ordered everyone around, including her own mother, who did everything she wanted, with many people feeling that she made similar characters like Caillou and D.W. Read, who are children mind you, look better behaved by comparison. The moment in where she tells Dot that she was disappointed that her crush wasn't coming to the party did a very poor job at making her sympathetic.
• Shallow Parody: In his review of the show, The Verge's Joshua Rivera criticized Episode 1's Take That! towards Late Night with Seth Meyers as not being based on reality, pointing out Meyers' preference to give attention to unusual topics and provide more incisive political commentary clashes with how he was portrayed in "Of Mice and Memes". Rivera stated that a "more frivolous [late-night talk show] host" like Jimmy Fallon would have made better sense, although it wouldn't have the parody "much funnier".
• Special Effect Failure: The part where Yakko interrupts the intro in "WhoDonut" would be seamless if not for the fact that if you look very closely, you'll see the outlines of the Warners becoming slightly thicker when he does so, due to the differing animation studios (the intro was animated by Snipple, while the sketch itself was animated by Titmouse).
• Squick:
  • The Trumplica cyclops rubbing Odysseus on his body like a loofah. The Gross Up Close Ups on his body are pretty vomit-worthy.
  • The woman on the train kissing her dog... on the lips.
  • The end of "The Cutening" sees the cute-ified Warners try to turn the world back to normal by "doing something gross"... which involves licking a pigeon that has pus in its eyes and violently vomiting on everything to turn the world back to normal. It's a pretty jarring case of gross-out humor.
  • The Gross-Up Close-Up of Queen Antoinette's fingers with a spider going inside.
  • A closeup of Wakko's tail regenerating in nauseating detail after it gets torn off by Nils in "Hindenburg Cola".
• Strawman Has a Point: Well, straw Chicken and it does not justify his actions, but he has a point (and it is a little sad) when saying there were other divisive characters in Animaniacs allowed to return — The Hippos, Katie Kaboom, Mindy, Buttons— and he was forbidden by contract to even appear. Plus, at least Chicken Boo upped his disguise game and added variety to his formula.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • Pinky's apology song in "How To: Friendship" sounds identical to "Funkytown" by Lipps Inc.
  • Pinky and Abigail's song in "Royal Flush" for "A Whole New World".
  • "Here Comes the Sea" for "Under the Sea".
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • Loonatics Unleashed gets the exact unflattering treatment an average Looney Tunes fan would give it in "Suffragette City".
  • The rapper in "Gift Rapper" describes Wakko as "less likable than Elmyra" as a way to insult him.
  • Pepé Le Pew being erased on "Yakko Amacko" can be seen as this, depending of your opinion on the character.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • The loss of many characters has upset most fans. However, the biggest loss was that of Slappy and Skippy, whose shorts were widely considered among the most popular behind the Warners and Pinky & the Brain in the original series. Many were crestfallen to hear they would not return. Granted, they do show up in "Good Warner Hunting" but only as a one-off gag.
    • Slappy gets more significant screen time in the final season with a quick cameo in a cutaway gag, and then finally a full short segment in the very last episode with original voice-actress Sherri Stoner reprising the role. To spoof her own lack of regular appearances in the show, the skit revolves around Slappy's retirement in Pensacola being disturbed by a Groupie Brigade demanding to see her; which she very much in character mocks.
    • To a lesser extent, the removal of Hello Nurse, both the character and the gag. Most audiences didn't have a problem with it, or at least found it offensive in an enjoyable kind of way. Not helping is the Double Standard that Dot is still able to act like this towards men.
  • As a result of the above, this means that the Warners and Pinky & the Brain have to carry a majority of the show (which the Warners themselves bring up in "Good Warner Hunting"). While they haven't changed much in terms of humor (other than updating with the times and being a bit meaner), some criticisms they've received are that it does get a little weary having the same five main characters over and over again in what was once a variety show that had a multitude of different characters. There are a few new segments with new characters, but they're too short to get a good grasp on them. Furthermore, this iteration is a lot more formulaic than its original outing even when ignoring this, as most episodes follow a Three Shorts format with a Warners skit, a Pinky & the Brain skit, and one last shorter skit with only a few deviations, which is the exact opposite of the "you never know what you'll get" approach the original show took.
  • The opening theme has been cited to be a little underwhelming. While the theme song itself is still fine ^note though a majority did think the "Dot has wit" from "Dot is cute" change was unnecessary since it wasn't even offensive, and she has more than proven she's just as smart as her brothers in the original. Likewise, while the new lyrics were added in nicely and even throw in a joke about the current atmosphere of the media, many do miss the roll call lines of the other characters, the visuals just make it feel... off without the other characters and lessen the over-the-top nature of the song. Even newcomers to the show have cited that the original opening theme felt more epic than the new one.
  • Also a slight gripe from some fans, but no sign-off Couch Gag like in the original show either.
  • Some criticism on Pinky & the Brain is how much harsher Brain is in regards to his plans and Pinky. In the original, he was calmer and more tactical but still had morals, and his treatment of Pinky leaned more towards annoyance and (in)tolerance. Despite that, Brain did show on several occasions he cared for Pinky's welfare. Here, Brain is more openly hostile to Pinky and seems to insult and abuse him more readily, Brain has a much colder demeanor, and he likewise mentions things like using child labor to make bombs or throwing his fellow mice under the bus in pursuit of world domination. Not to mention the fact he straight up tortures Julia the moment she doesn't want to go along with his plans and is completely apathetic to her suffering, at least at first.
  • While the original series had gross out humor (including entire musical scores of burps), some fans considered the much more frequent use of Gross-Up Close-Up in the new series to be unnecessary and very off-putting.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Nora Rita Norita. Compared to her predecessor, Thaddeus Plotz, Nora had significantly less screen time in the first season and wasn't involved in many stories, and only appeared in one scene in each of the shorts that she was in. Thankfully the second season gives her more screen time and development, and even shows off her extended family.
  • In Dot's song about the First Ladies, she runs out of time and only namedrops most of them. Contrast this with the original's song about the US Presidents, which managed to have short descriptions for every single president up to that point (Bill Clinton). At least this is justified, as she hadn't practiced singing about every First Lady in two minutes, and it would've been difficult anyway.
  • While Slappy's appearance in the final season was well-received by the fanbase, many still wish that both she and Skippy had more screentime and appearances throughout the reboot. Gabe Swarr revealed that if a fourth season had been greenlit, they, along with the other characters, could've made more appearance, which is sadly not happening because of the reboot's cancellation.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Episode 5's "Pinky and the Brain" segment could have been used to explain why the titular lab mice weren't hunted down and mounted by Walter Grubb/Chicken Boo in the previous segment "Good Warner Hunting" even if they just make it a throw-away line. Instead, the issue is never brought up.
  • The anime bit in "Bun Control" could have been expanded to an episode of its own rather than a throwaway gag.
• Tough Act to Follow: This is a reboot to one of the most legendary and highly regarded cartoon shows of its generation. Saying this reaction was inevitable is understating it immensely.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Sure, it was only for a very brief Take That! gag, but who would've expected the characters from Loonatics Unleashed to appear in fully animated form in "Suffragette City"?
  • Speaking of "Suffragette City" the segment contains many cameos from Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, this is the first time they have been seen together ever! Coincidentally Yogi Bear and Boo Boo exist in this show despite the fact that the show had expies named Calhoun Q. Capybara and Lew Lew (though granted, as that was before Warner Bros. acquired Hanna-Barbera).
  • Not too many people expected to see Pharfignewton the horse, Charlton "Baynarts" Woodchuck (even moreso as the episode previously implied he had been killed and skinned), and Miles Standish of all people return in the final few shots of “Good Warner Hunting”.
  • Larry from the episode "Pinky and the Brain...and Larry" making a cameo in "The Flawed Couple" was certainly a surprise. He's also only the second direct reference in the show to the events of the non-Animaniacs Pinky and the Brain spinoff and the first (an appearance of the almost-a-word "TROZ") occurred in the same episode.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Fidget spinners get referenced in a Pinky and the Brain short, immediately putting the viewer right back to the time it was written. While they do joke about the fact it was indeed a fad, people weren't removed far enough from their demise to feel nostalgia for them yet and as a result it comes across as this.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Marie-Antoinette, the queen of France, and the first female historical figure to get slapstick treatment on the show. She's portrayed as a Spoiled Brat Womanchild, but as in real life, Marie is Obliviously Evil. She doesn't know any better about the people being poor, and cannot understand it due to her upbringing. The Warners pose as servants to get entrance to Versailles and eat all the cake she has; her response is to chide them for not doing their jobs and wait on her. They didn't even try their usual shtick of asking politely first and getting incentivized to fight back when they insult her. It wasn't very polite calling them "Lazy servants", but her request was completely reasonable. Also, if you know your French history, Marie wasn't the one responsible for the poverty of her people; she was merely a scapegoat due to being a foreigner ^note  she came from Austria and having expensive tastes while the whole system needed an overhaul.  What's more, while she may or may not have sentenced the Warners to death for stealing from her (see Alternate Character Interpretation above), she doesn't deserve Yakko happily announcing she'll be sentenced to prison and executed in due time as she was in history. 
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Most agree that the animation is very nice and fluid, and is about on par with TMS and StarToons' episodes of the original.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?:
  • Despite being based on a show intended for all ages that originally ran on kid-oriented programming blocks, the show is significantly Ruder and Cruder than its original iteration and features a lot of references to pop culture and current events that you actually need to be somewhat familiar with in order to follow the plots, even if the show is rated TV-PG.
• The Woobie:
  • Yakko becomes this in "Fear and Laughter in Burbank" when his fears of being alone and people not finding him funny come to light. The poor kid just sounds so desperate as he calls out for someone to talk to and begs Nickelwise to laugh.
  • Egwind, a fat third mouse appearing in a few of the Pinky and the Brain segments, always gets killed off before he can do anything.
  • Tuck Buckerson, a news anchorman, gets physically and verbally assaulted by the Warners despite having done absolutely nothing to them. He's not even a jerk or anything; he just asked for their opinions on current social and political issues.
• Woolseyism: In the Spanish dub of "WhoDonut", the SAP gag has Wakko speak English.

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