Contributed by Panu V.
My point is about the slight increase in morbid death-based humor during the later production seasons of Animaniacs. I can give a detailed view of the phenomenon. You see, when examining those episodes more closely, it turns out most of those deaths were the ones of several famous historical persons. The show had, of course, dealt with history and its figures since the very beginning, but in a slightly different way from the start of 3rd season.
First example is “The Presidents Song”, which, as many of you probably know, sings briefly about the Presidents of the United States. I couldn’t help but notice that it was a bit different in some parts from any previous Animaniacs song numbers. The mentioning of presidents being killed during their term was recurring in lyrics/background scenes at least three times (there was also going to be a fourth one about J.F. Kennedy, but it was removed from the final version - wonder why?). Also included was this lyric about Zachary Taylor: “His breath killed friends whenever he smoked”. All this felt slightly odd to me.
But there were still more similar scenes. Another song number “The Ballad of Magellan” tells about Magellan’s journey across the sea in search of the East Indies. Of course, also included is the scene of him being killed by natives’ spears - however a couple of feet offscreen. He appears as a ghost at the end of the song. And in the 5th season, there was yet another song number (anyone notice a disturbing pattern here?), dedicated to Attila the Hun. In this one, the writers actually “rewrote” Attila’s death, because he is described (and shown on-screen) as choking on too much food during his wedding. His burial is seen immediately after.
None of these instances are really that detailed or play a major part in the script, of course, but were still quite a big change from the show’s first seasons, where almost nothing was shown to represent death, either comical or otherwise, even if it meant altering history (one 1st season episode dealt with Czar Nicholas II and Grigori Rasputin, and no references were made to either Czar’s son’s hemophilia or Rasputin’s murder - he’s simply fired). And the change didn’t stop in historical parodies, either: in a 3rd season Slappy Squirrel cartoon, her enemies hold a fake funeral to lure her into a trap. Many morbid jokes were obviously slipped in. I also don’t think I’ve seen another “family show” which has featured zombies - and by that I mean “real” zombies, as in living corpses, and not any kind of hypnotized people or something. Animaniacs did this in the 4th season episode “Night of the Living Buttons”.
Tags: Presidents, Zachary Taylor, JFK, Magellan, Attila the Hun
May 11, 2008 at 7:42 am
“Hysteria: it’s ike the historical songs in Animaniacs, without the goddamn Warner Brothers.” - the one-sentence pitch I got about that show when talking with a WBTV director at an animation job fair.
My general impression - from that quote, and from later discussions with people who’d worked on the show - is that nobody who worked on Animaniacs really liked it much after very long; the increasing amount of morbid humor can probably be traced to this sublimated bitterness.