Animaniacs (2020– )

It's time for my thoughts on Animaniacs! Or I should say, the 2020 reboot. When I watched the trailer, I was excited because it looked creative. To get an idea of what the show was like I spent the last two months watching 20-30 episodes of the original show plus the movie (which I think is okay) to prepare myself. I had some reservations about the reboot but I really enjoyed the original show so I wanted to give it a chance.

Then I watched the first two episodes, and something wasn't clicking. Instead of providing fun zany satire it felt like I was just watching a show that was spewing modernism without charm or personality. The humor felt stale and the jabs it took at pop culture were kind of reduced to Trump jokes and internet references. My worst fears were being realized as I thought that Spielberg sold out his show just to look cool and hip. I was not impressed. I was ready to watch the third episode without any expectations and if I lost interest here, I would drop the episodes altogether.

Then episode 3 happened, and it was amazing! It felt like a breath of fresh air and suddenly the show went from passable at best and kind of empty to full of spirit, full of charm and full of personality. The satire from this point forward wasn't nearly as on the nose and actually felt...smart. And zany. And most of all, at least to me, kind of subtle. This helped immensely and suddenly the show was a lot easier to watch. I feel like they had to just get out all the political ramblings in the first two episodes to scare off trolls and then after that they were like "You know what, we're just gonna have fun and be ourselves." And then it was a fun ride from there and even if a joke missed I was still interested to finish because most of the comedy in the episodes really worked.

Also, out of the side characters, Nils is the best one. Totally perfect in every way.

If you are not sure where to begin, I would honestly say to skip the first two episodes. They don't help give a good idea of what this show is about. They make it look a lot worse than it actually is. Maybe it's just me, maybe nobody else agrees with that, but I'm always gonna stand by my stance. Additionally, even if you aren't a fan of the Animaniac sketches watch the Pinky & Brain ones. They are great. Some might complain about a lack of side characters, but I think they got the right approach. If they added a bunch of shorts about a ton of side characters, I don't think it would have worked.

I would recommend episodes 3, episode 4, episode 9, episode 10 and episode 11 especially. Overall, very good reboot. If I gave it a score it would be an 8/10, closer to a nine than a seven.