Animaniacs has released Yakko, Wakko and Dot from the Warner Bros. water tower for the first time in 22 years. In the Hulu revival series, the Warner brothers and the Warner sister get themselves up to date on the latest current events in order to mercilessly make fun of them -- and, according to producers Wellesley Wild and Gabe Swarr, that's exactly why now is the right time for a revival series.
Speaking to CBR, Wild and Swarr explained how the Animaniacs offer respite from a divisive world. They addressed what it was like to write humor during a time where life often seems stranger than fiction, as well as how modern day series like The Amazing World of Gumball influenced the revival. They also revealed Steven Spielberg's direct impact on the animation style, which scenes they're most excited for fans to see and more.
CBR: Why now? What made today's climate the right time for an Animaniacs revival?
Wellesley Wild: The comfort that the nostalgia provides in these ridiculously polarizing times. I think the show has an easy entry point. It's got a Looney Tunes-y kind of feel. It doesn't over-challenge or overtax you so much. At the end of the day of exhausting interactions with our world, it provides some comfort. Also, Warner Brothers and Amblin want to make a lot of money.
The past five years or so have been pretty wild, so I'm wondering: how does one approach satire when life seems stranger than fiction?
Wild: I think it's about the degrees of meta, you know? I think at some point, you reach a level of meta where nothing makes sense anymore, and then you have to redefine what meta is. So we didn't go that far, but yeah, when the show is as self-aware as Animaniacs is, you have to be self-aware of your self-awareness. You know what I mean? So, yeah, I think we had to take a step back from the original, just in terms of the approach to satire. There's been so many shows since Animaniacs has been off the air that have changed the comedic climate and tone of things, so we tried to keep up or maybe even be a little ahead of that, for kids and their parents. [laughs]
Gabe Swarr: Visually, too, it's a good time to bring it back, just because there's so many new styles that everyone's exposed to, so to try to bring those in as other influences.
Wild: Yeah! Like The Amazing World of Gumball -- the visual variety is like a buffet, you know? That's a great example of a show that sort of brought things forward, comedically, visually. There's a lot of Gumballs! I mean, I love Gumball. I think it's amazing.
Obviously, animation technology has really evolved since Animaniacs ended in 1998, so how did that impact the way you developed the new look and feel for these beloved characters?
Swarr: Well, actually, we did a development process where we did a bunch of different takes of the characters and styles, and out of that, like shown to Steven [Spielberg], he wasn't very happy with straying too far from the original. So we had to go back and look at all the original shows and figure out what was the best of the best.
There was a studio called TMS back in the day that outsourced all their animation, and it was a Japanese studio called Tokyo Movie Shin. That was our favorite, and then we found out that was also Steven's favorite. So we really leaned in design-wise to them.
Then, as far as animation style, I mean, you have to do full animation. That's what the original show was. So this is a very high, high -- a lot of labor-intensive drawing went into keeping the characters' feel really alive. Then, outside of the main characters, we tried to push other styles and new ways of doing things as much as we could. So the ones that aren't specifically like the core -- what we call the core style -- we call them off-core, they're visually different.
Wild: Yeah, and Gabe did an incredible job of harnessing all that new technology and animation and recreating that sort of hand-drawn feel that takes us back to the original WB cartoons.
What is one thing you cannot wait for audiences to see?
Swarr: The variety. That's what I'm excited about.
Wild: God, it's so hard to say. There's a sequence in a segment called The Cutening that has a pretty cool Kpop song... The song and, Gabe, that animation style was amazing. Yeah, I would say that's what I'm most excited about, I guess, off the top of my head.
Animaniacs stars Jess Harnell, Maurice LaMarche, Tress MacNeille and Rob Paulsen. Season 1 of the revival arrives on Hulu Nov. 20.