The classic Warner Brothers cartoons of the 1930s and 40s were full of pop culture references, so it’s no surprise that in the 90s the Warner Brothers — and their sister, Dot — drew from a broad base of sources for Animaniacs. But those old shorts were theatrical releases that screened for adults and children alike, while the afternoon-aired Animaniacs was clearly marketed to children. And that makes its allusions and homages and outright rip-offs of adult-focused entertainment even odder. The show wrung a recurring short out of a bird-based parody of Goodfellas, a movie that presumably very few 10-year-olds had seen. But “little guy losing his shit” is a classic cartoon conceit, so porting a furious Joe Pesci into a pigeon still works on a basic level of entertainment.
The show’s breakout segment, though, was original. Pinky and the Brain follows two mice (guess their names) as they try to take over the world with elaborate schemes and come surprisingly close before failing every time. Maurice LaMarche’s Brain owes a debt to Orson Welles in grandiosity but is more of a straight man than Welles could stand to be, and Rob Paulsen’s Pinky is a daffy delight, whose devotion to his friend is only surpassed by his ability to fuck things up. In short order the pair had their own TV show on the WB, which we did not get on our extremely basic cable setup, and I was getting a little too old for cartoons anyway. These days I still don’t have cable but I have Tubi, which recently landed the full run of Pinky And The Brain, and it’s become a wind-down show.
The show pulls from all areas of culture, including reality — one episode is based around the 1996 presidential election — but it also runs to very specific parody far more than I remembered happening in Animaniacs. But would I have remembered that anyway? Because a lot of this material is, like Goodfellas, well outside the typical pre-teen purview. LaMarche’s Wellesian riffs are given the canvas of a full parody of The Third Man, complete with black and white cinematography and zither score, and if no children are poisoned the Brain gets to deliver a hilarious inversion of the cuckoo clock monologue. Watching it as an adult is a gas, but the episode makes sure to include plenty of physical comedy along with the homage. A young viewer would clearly sense something is afoot here but can still laugh along. Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd turned opera into comedy, after all — post-war noir is just as sound a structure for play.
As is the kaiju flick, and the most recent episode I watched placed our heroes in 1950s Japan, where they plan to reverse engineer a shrinking ray to become monstrous; Pinky will impersonate Godzilla and let the Brain vanquish him, resulting in adulation and world dominance (this is par for the course for the pair’s plans in terms of convolution). Obviously the real Godzilla (or at least the Legally Distinct Parody Gollyzilla) will show up, what I was not expecting were multiple cuts every few minutes to a square-jawed man on a clearly separate set, grimly intoning “I see.” This is of course Legally Not Raymond Burr, the American inserted into the original Godzilla, and maybe some of the kids who were watching Tommy DeVito bludgeon Billy Batts to death were also watching that flick. But I’m guessing for most young viewers the deadpan reference did not play as a riff on an archetype or a style or performance, but as a total non sequitur.
The WB execs wanted Pinky and the Brain to compete with The Simpsons for their audience of kids and adults, but while The Simpsons was an even thicker stew of references that very density usually absorbed the real weird stuff into the background — thinking of something like the candy convention page system “looking for Mr. Goodbar,” which is a background gag that still scans as a goof on a funny name if you don’t know the (extremely dark) allusion to the 1970s movie. Or how “Itchy & Scratchy Land” is a direct riff on Westworld but also works just fine on its own, “killer robots attack” is a fine plot for any show. And ultimately I should’ve realized the writers of “Tokyo Grows” (Gordon Bressack and Charles M. Howell IV, and how is that title for another kid-unfriendly reference?) had a plan for this intrusion.
Eventually the shrinking-turned-growing ray is knocked loose and it embiggens Burr himself, who throws down with Godzilla in a final battle. The stray reference is once again folded into the larger work and it is indeed very funny to see a giant Raymond Burr fighting an equally large lizard. But even without that, I just appreciate the audacity of deploying something so blatantly weird, a reference outside the expected frame of reference that stares you in the face, demanding you deal with it. It’s a show that is not just funny but having fun, and that is especially pleasurable to see in a landscape of Surf Draculas deep in boring lore and low on hijinks. And I think it’s fun for those younger viewers as well, and perhaps instructive in its own way: Art will do what it wants, and that might not be something you’re expecting.
So that’s what I’ve been watching on TV. What about you?
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Conversation
There is an Animaniacs withe the Warners in Camelot fighting a dragon, and Raymond Burr shows up and fears for the future of all humanity. (That also features a cameo by Dr. Strangelove and the dragon turns out to be a mecha controlled by…Pinky and the Brain!)
It is too much to think that someday no one will get the Raymond Burr Godzilla jokes because the only version anyone watches is the unaltered original?
As for what I am watching, the usual Frasier and Elementary. But hey, The Practice is back on Amazon Prime? To watch the Alan Shore Year or not to watch, that is once more the question.
The unaltered original Godzilla becoming the (rightful) standard was a big part of my thinking here — you have to work to find the Burr version now. It’s making me think of how some movies had different cuts and different material for TV, for a time those would have been more common but now they’re probably only existing as rips on a hard drive.
I have so many fond memories of Pinky and the Brain. I should put the occasional episode on sometime, with all due thanks to Tubi. That Raymond Burr joke is making me laugh just thinking about it.
Lots of TV viewing lately! Still watching Slow Horses–still mentally calling it Slorses, of courses–and just wrapped up the revived season 10 of Scrubs last night (more on both in the WDWW thread). This Thursday will bring the finale of season 2 of The Pitt, and the second episodes of the new seasons of both Hacks and Taskmaster, both of which had incredibly strong starts last week.
BritBox wronged me by removing Inside No. 9 from its catalog, preventing me from occasionally rewatching episodes as easily as I’d like to (S2-9 are also on Kanopy, but you have to rent a whole season, so I can’t hop around as much); I’ve foiled them by buying a region-free Blu-ray player and ordering the complete box set from overseas, so that massive outlay of money has certainly shown BritBox, uh, something; clearly they’re the ones who got played here. Whatever, at least I’m now unshackled from region-locked physical media torment.
If nothing else, definitely watch the Third Man homage, it is a total joy.
The almost-verabtim re-creation of Orson Welles’s infamous read for the frozen peas commercial is also something to behold,.
What did we watch?
The Plot Against Harry – The real plot is the friends we make along the way? Michael Roemer’s once-buried indie gem follows the travails of a Jewish racketeer who tries to get his life together after going to prison, losing his numbers business, and rediscovering his ex-wife and her family. This is carried by a mordant but oddly kind sense of humor, stunning black and white camera work shot all around NYC, a game cast of unknowns, and a slow build of a story that never quite has much weight but does have a lot of humanity. This is also incredibly Jewish, with Harry buying into his former brother in law’s kosher catering business and scenes of bar mitzvahs, circumcisions, and weddings. This is in conversation with The Heartbreak Kid and Mikey and Nicky, mirrors to a culture that at once endures and has changed greatly since I was born.
Might have to see this!
It’s on Prime and I think all of Roemer’s movies are on Criterion.
“A slow build of a story that never quite has much weight but does have a lot of humanity” is a great description. “Guy trying to get back into crime after prison” is a story that generally goes one way, aka Carlito’s Way, and this slowly shifts away from that into the larger stew of Harry’s community and their amazing faces — this is such an alive movie in the characters and environment beyond the protagonist. It’s an interesting companion to A Serious Man — both Larry and Harry (hmmmm) are adrift in the world, beset by all kinds of trials, but Harry has a stronger connection to his faith through all of these people if not internally, and he is able to embrace the mystery and chaos more than Larry is.
M*A*S*H, Season Three, Episode Twenty-Three, “White Gold”
“Oh Frank. Without you, my intellectual life would absolutely stagnate.”
“How does it snap open?”
“If we had more men like you, we’d have less men like you.”
I was thinking while watching this that I tolerate Colonel Flagg episodes more than anything; the first couple were funny (“The wind broke his leg.”), but I feel like they stretched the joke out too far. Edward Winters never lost his commitment though; his sliding between indifference and contempt for reality around him at all times while focused completely on the task at hand. But then this climaxed with the first iteration of Hawkeye committing unnecessary surgery, a theme that would be revisited in a powerful way later that drives a conflict between not only Hawk and BJ but Alan Alda and Mike Farrell. It’s a real good checkpoint in the show.
It also shows how much stayed the same. The episode opens with the wacky music it would lose pretty much next season, as guys rob the supply for penicillin while the cast make relevant jokes in their tents, but they’re also robbing the supply for penicillin and this aspect is played entirely seriously.
Flagg only appears seven times, so I think the writers got tired of him as well. In his final appearance, the tables are turned on him so thoroughly that it isn’t surprising he never came back.
Yeah, but I was already bored with him by this point, so I find the remaining, what, four times after this frustrating at best.
Slow Horses, “Cleaning Up”
There’s a very cool action setpiece here with the Dogs invading the document storage facility, and it’s well-paired with some comedic touches, but the big highlight of the episode is Tearney and Taverner’s superficially friendly breakdown of their political jockeying: two spymasters sitting in an office, having conspired against each other, waiting to see how the balance of power will be affected by the brutal attempted slaughter going on across town. We also get a great mini-reveal on Marcus here, as he says that–before his exile to Slough House–he could have been a Dog, but he didn’t want to work with people like Duffy. It’s the first time anyone besides Lamb and Catherine has acknowledged that the situation everyone is ostensibly trying to get back to is ethically permafucked in a way that might not be worth it.
Scrubs, “My Celebration”
This unavoidably feels rushed–this is not a heavily plotted show, but here it’s trying to resolve a bunch of emotional arcs that would more naturally fit into a traditional 20+-episode season, and it means some aspects get shortchanged. (JD’s new romance and the interns’ dating travails probably show the biggest signs of that, though I quite like how the latter plot ends up.) The bigger problem with this finale is really that Cox’s feeling that Jordan sees him as strong and invulnerable makes no fucking sense in the context of several major past plotlines. Dude, I remember when she had to get people to sit with you on what was basically a suicide watch! It’s a rare misfire on an emotional throughline–him struggling with being vulnerable in front of anyone, even her, makes sense, but not like this–for a show that’s usually very keyed in on that front.
Still, we have more Blake backstory reveal drops (former stripper!), Park’s irritation over his niceness attempts not immediately netting him the reaction he wants, Todd and Jordan’s high five, and the return of the Janitor (“For two, press five” and “I’ll just put it under your car” both killed me). Neil Flynn, I’ve missed you. Turk and Carla coming off as inept swingers, even to Turk, is another comedic highlight.
Cleaning Up is both an excellent episode and sort of why I felt like three seasons is enough for me. The cynicism about security services is well earned, but this is where I reached the moment of “wow, none of these people are doing anything for the greater good, how much of them can I stand?” It’s funny because at first I couldn’t stand Lamb and by this point, he’s really quite tolerable next to the backstabbers and careerists at HQ.
I think it being set around the Slow Horses, who are often just scrambling to deal with a dangerous situation already in motion (and usually at least trying to do the right thing), gives it enough heart for me, even if the overall picture is quite cynical. But of course, they’re often not able to move the needle in a meaningful way, or they’re just doing literal damage control while the Park is doing reputational damage control, so I can see it feeling too bleak.
I have a bone-deep soft spot for Lamb’s particular kind of loyalty to his joes, though.
Eephus — rewatch! More to come! But not now, as I am currently living through the sowing/reaping tweet due to certain beverages consumed during the watch.
I was a featured reader at one of the regular poetry nights in Philly, lot of fun hanging out with friends I hadn’t seen in a minute and hopefully making some new ones (had a great talk with a guy after re: Wilde and Eliot, then he bought my book). Some young guys reading for the first time ever at the open mic and doing a fine job too, there’s hope for the kids yet.
Woooo live poetry! Congrats on the sale, I assume you Jay Shermaned him into submission.
Wooo, live poetry and a sale!
Goodfellas is now my favorite movie so I’d be fascinated to watch the Goodpigeons bit again, I definitely felt baffled by the jokes as a kid. Why are the pigeons acting vaguely…Italian? (Not like I’d seen ANY mob movies!)
I am going off very hazy memories here but I recall them being more NOO YAWK than straight up Italian (although that was there) and pigeons = NYC made a lot of sense, I think that cultural shorthand and stereotypical attitude cuts through a lot of times and genres. What’s funny Goodfellas-wise is how Pesci is a straight one to one parody and the Liotta pigeon is more naive but still in line with basic aspects of Henry Hill, the De Niro analogue is nonexistent — the third pigeon is “big calm guy” if I remember right, a crucial counterpart to “small guy losing his shit” but closer to Paul Sorvino now that I think about it.
I assume this pigeon doesn’t move for nobody.
I honestly don’t remember the DeNiro pigeon – I think he was rather unimaginatively called Bobby? – doing anything interesting. But the entirely of the shorts outside of the ones that spoofed West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof are a blur. On a show with Pinky and the Brain, the Warners, Slappy Squirrel, and Bernadette Peters as a cat, Goodfeathers slides to the back of the line. (There were possibly too many different ideas in play.)
Animaniacs was the first time I remember looking at a piece of media and not understanding it but being more or less able to articulate “this is referencing a thing that I’m not familiar with yet.”
It’s like going from tuning out adult conversations to recognizing the larger emotions or concerns without understanding the specifics. A widening of vision, even if what you see isn’t clear.