Look, It's A Big Fat Fanny!: Episode 6
Cold Opener:Flipper Parody (TMS)
Many Animaniacs episodes begin with a cold opener; a brief song or a short skit that plays before the theme. Here, we get a quick Flipper parody. The Warners, singing about how they “taste just like fish”, swim around in the ocean like dolphins while a water skiing Ralph ends up smashing into a buoy. It’s bizarre, but harmless enough.
Variable Verse: Cockamamie
Mr. Plotz’s secretary punches out early with a terrible head cold, leaving the terrified CEO alone in his office to take phone calls by himself. Attempting to call a temp agency, Plotz accidentally phones the water tower, where the Warners are only too happy to help. When he sees just how good Dot is at answering phones, Plotz reluctantly lets the kids stick around. “You won’t live to regret this”, says Yakko. Dot proves to be less useful than expected, as she ditches her post the second Mel Gibson walks into the office waiting room. Yakko, meanwhile, takes advantage of Plotz’s signature by getting him to endorse an 80 zillion dollar check…which unfortunately for the kids doesn’t make it very far out of the CEO’s office. Eventually, Plotz gives each of them their own jobs to do. Yakko types a non-existent memo on an invisible typewriter, Dot literally files a stack of papers down to the floor (and files away some of that too) and Wakko ends up battling the copy machine, which he successfully destroys with a mallet.
Each time a phone rings, the Warners fight amongst themselves to answer it, with the winner usually being the one who successfully distracts the others. “THE HORROR!!”, works well enough for Yakko early on, pointing at nothing in particular. Wakko gets the short end of the stick every single time, lamenting “I NEVER get to get it!” with each defeat. Even his best attempt to distract Yakko and Dot (“Look, it’s a big, fat fanny!” - easily the funniest line in the cartoon) fails. Plotz lifts Wakko’s spirits by calling him into his office to take a letter. Unfortunately not only does Wakko not know what it means to take dictation (“Where do you want me to take it?”), he proceeds to write a letter to Santa Claus. The CEO next tries Dot, who tunes him out completely, still head over heels in love with Mel Gibson. Yakko only lasts long enough in Plotz’ office to ask the same question Wakko had earlier.
By now, Plotz has reached his breaking point. Just as it’s all about to hit the fan, the phone rings one more time. Determined to finally be the one to answer it, Wakko snatches the phone and makes a break for it. A free-for-all ensues in Plotz’s office, which eventually has the consequence of pulling the phone line through the wall and ripping free every telephone pole in the nearby area. Dozens upon dozens of poles begin piling on the administration building, eventually destroying it completely. As the chaos subsides, Wakko finally answers the phone. It’s Plotz’s “scelecetary”, whose still sick. “You get us for one more day!” exclaims Wakko. A falling brick to the head puts Plotz out of his misery.
“Cockamamie” is pretty much the most appropriate variable verse for this episode to start off with, as “Temporary Insanity” is easily the most outright silly Warners short that we’ve gotten so far. By turning them loose on Thaddeus Plotz and letting them run wild in his office, this cartoon creates a very different dynamic than when the kids are paired up with Scratchansniiff. It’s also writer Rugg’s first real bulls eye, as his offbeat sense of humor truly shines for the first time here. Despite its two act structure, the cartoon is never slow or feels like it’s repeating any material we’ve seen before. Thanks to its absolutely perfect running gag, it builds a great momentum from start to finish and has one of the very best endings we’ve seen so far. Each of the kids gets a chance to shine, though it’s obvious that Rugg has taken a liking to Wakko, who really stands out in this cartoon, getting all the best scenes. The quality of the cartoon also extends to TMS’ animation which, while not their best work, is incredibly strong and immensely entertaining, a far cry from their work in the previous episode. Richard Stone’s scoring also deserves praise, as he uses the Animaniacs theme to underscore the final race to answer the phone, which adds an even greater sense of speed to the finale.
Plotz’s office is full of pictures of Tiny Toons characters, including Hamton, Buster and Elmyra. I somehow doubt the real administrative offices at Warner Brothers in the ‘90s were full of pictures of their television characters.
This is our first real look inside the water tower (“Nighty Night Toon” doesn’t count) revealing a living space just as insane as the characters who live there. Posters from some of their cartoons line the walls, and the animation of the train as it travels around it’s tracks has a lot of character.
Another “Gooodnight Everybody” moment. Wakko seasons and eats Plotz’s paperweight and tells him he’ll have to wait a while when Plotz asks for it back.
*insert “We’re in the Money” instrumental here*
Whenever I think of this cartoon, Yakko and his imaginary typewriter is usually the first thing that comes to mind.
Great frustrated pose on the third and final, “I NEVER get to get it!”
After being asked by Plotz to come into his office and take dictation, Wakko puffs out his chest and proudly struts inside…then pokes his head back out and raspberries his siblings.
Great set-up in this shot, with Plotz’s shadow looming over Yakko and Dot.
Plotz stops the chase long enough to ask when the insanity is going to end. Dot’s explanation is, “When one of us answers the phone, silly!” Plotz’s response to the camera is a matter-of-fact, “I did not know that.”
Buttons and Mindy Intro
The intro to the Mindy and Buttons cartoons plays as a demented Lassie parody. Mindy calls to Buttons, who runs to her without realizing that he’s just unsuccessfully tried to jump over a cliff. Buttons plummets to the ground, humiliated, as Mindy laughs at the “silly puppy”. This intro presents one of the very few times (outside of the Wakko’s Wish direct to video feature) that both Mindy and Buttons were animated together by TMS. It’s a predictable opening but I get a laugh out of it.
The story goes that during development on Animaniacs Mindy and Buttons were sitting on the reject pile until one of Spielberg’s kids took a look at Mindy and responded positively, insuring both of them a place on the show. The concept at work in these cartoons is really just a watered down version of the theatrical Roger Rabbit cartoons that had just run their course over at Disney/Touchstone. There’s the innocent toddler Mindy (voiced by Nancy “Bart Simpson” Cartwright) who wanders through all sorts of dangerous situations, always coming out unscathed. Then there’s her loyal protector Buttons (Frank Welker) who, in his steadfast attempts to keep Mindy out of trouble, always comes out beaten and bruised with no reward to show for it. The biggest difference here is that while Roger Rabbit was a fast-talking, ultra-cartoony screwball, poor Buttons is treated like a very real dog, whose dialogue just consists of barks and whimpers. It becomes almost intolerable to watch Buttons take all manner of injury, and the fact that every cartoon ends with Buttons being scolded by Mindy’s mother doesn’t help manners.
To make manners worse, the Buttons and Mindy cartoons are the most formulaic of all the segments we’ve seen so far. Every single Buttons and Mindy short begins in the back yard (no matter where the setting is) with the nameless and faceless mother character (MacNeille) engaging in a power struggle with Mindy over saying her name. The toddler only calls her “lady”, and the repetition of this joke in every cartoon grows tiresome. Then Buttons is warned to watch Mindy and stay out of trouble. The instant the mother leaves, Mindy pulls free from her harness and leaves the yard, usually after something that’s caught her attention. Buttons is beaten to a pulp trying to save her, returns her to the yard and is then told off by Mindy’s mother for allegedly doing what he was told not to do at the very beginning of the cartoon.
The specifics of this cartoon? Mindy’s lollipop flies out of her hands and affixes itself to the side of a mail truck. Mindy ends up along for the ride as she tries to remove it, while Buttons does his best to keep up with the truck. Everyone ends up at the airport, where Mindy and the lollipop end up on a plane along with sacks of mail and Buttons finds himself hanging on for dear life on the landing gear. Just as Buttons makes it inside the plane, Mindy falls right out of it. Using a bag of mail like a parachute, Buttons is able to save Mindy and gently land right back in their backyard, where - covered in letters - he’s scolded for bothering the mailman.
The Buttons and Mindy series was another set of cartoons that were lower in the pecking order in terms of the studios they were sent to for animation. Most of the cartoons were animated by Akom and Freelance, and therein lies another one of the problems. A cartoon that relies primarily on slapstick physical humor should have the animation to make it come to life. Because the Buttons and Mindy cartoons were sent to the bottom of the food chain, they instead just become an exercise in how bad the writers can injure the unfortunate dog, and there’s nothing funny about that. That said, Akom at least tries to pull off full animation this time around. Attention seemed to be paid to turning Mindy into a cute, likeable character, when that effort really should have been spent on using expressive, full animation to make Buttons’ plight funny. But I suppose that was too much to ask from Akom. The best aspects of these segments are usually Mindy’s inquisitive back and forth’s with random passersby and Buttons’ frequent monkey screeches of terror, neither of which appear in this cartoon.
I’m not sure what they were trying to do here. The faces Mindy makes in this shot are really strange, as is the perspective between her and Buttons.
This is an extreme face that works with the full animation of this scene, as Mindy runs towards the camera and is suddenly pulled back by her harness. Always surprised whenever a really good movement like this shows up in an Akom cartoon.
Buttons stops his pursuit (and even the music pauses) when he comes across a fire hydrant.
Character Cameo: the Warners drive by on a luggage tram, chased as usual by Ralph. Dot actually has a line here, “Hiya folks!”
Another well-done shot of Mindy, the camera pulling away from her as she watches her lollipop disappear into the mail plane.
This is actually a rather decent drawing of a crushed Buttons.
I really think I’d be easier on these cartoons if they didn’t all end like this.
What Are We? (Music and Lyrics by Randy Rogel, Directed by Michael Gerard)
Dr. Scratchansniff attempts to hypnotize the Warners into behaving but like everything else it fails miserably. The doctor then asks the question on everyone’s mind; just what are the Warners? They answer him in song, listing off all the possibilities, everything from dogs, cats and bunnies to dinosaurs, insects and eels. Finally they simply come to the conclusion that what they actually are…is cute! Fun animation from Startoons highlights this song. It’s not perfect, but they keep the characters on model and there are great bits and pieces of the sort of animation we can expect to see from them in time. The song itself isn’t the best or most remembered musical number in the series, but it’s nice to finally see each sibling get a turn to sing on their own, and not stand in Yakko’s shadow.
Really nice animation as the Warners wake up from their hypnosis. The groggy look on Wakko’s face is priceless. Only Startoons.
Two surefire ways to tell a Startoons Warner apart from anyone else’s: the small separation line on the back of their teeth and the distinctive knuckle curve.
Startoons also had a habit of giving Wakko a very large turtleneck.
Scratchy kind of suffers from being a little off model here.
This is really well animated, as the Warners move in time to every beat of the song as it hits it’s climax.
This looks a lot better in action, as Scratchy’s face jiggles like jello after the kids kiss him.
Squirrel Handler: Kathryn Page
Tower Outro: “I can’t think of the ending to this show.” “I can’t think of anything else.”
