Yakko, Wakko and Dot are back in the water tower. Animaniacs, the 2020 American animated series, revives the anarchic cartoon variety show of the 1990s for a new decade, with fast sketches, songs and jokes pitched at children and their parents at the same time.
What is Animaniacs about?
The three Warner siblings have one talent above all others: turning any orderly place into a mess within seconds. Having returned to their old home, the water tower on the Warner Bros. studio lot, they are soon loose again, racing through offices, sound stages and the wider world as if all of it were a playground built for them. Each episode is assembled from short, self-contained segments, so the trio might be tormenting a studio employee in one sketch and singing their way through a completely different situation in the next. Alongside them come Pinky and the Brain, the pair of laboratory mice whose nightly plan never changes: take over the world. Their schemes run as separate stories within the show, giving it a second comic engine beside the siblings' chaos.
About the cast
The voice cast is led by Rob Paulsen, Jess Harnell, Tress MacNeille and Maurice LaMarche, four performers whose work carries the rapid dialogue and the musical numbers. In a series this dependent on timing, wordplay and song, the voices do much of what a camera and a set would do in live action.
Context & significance
This is a new version of a cartoon that many viewers first met in the 1990s, and it keeps the original's format: a sketch show in animated form, where characters know they are in a cartoon and talk about the studio that makes it. The series is listed under animation, comedy, family and musical, and the last of those labels matters, because songs are a regular part of the episodes. Instalments run about 25 minutes each, short enough for younger viewers and easy to watch a few at a time. It was warmly received by audiences. The humour works on two levels, with slapstick for children and quicker verbal jokes for adults, which makes it a practical choice for a household watching together.
Watching Animaniacs on Ktime
Animaniacs can be watched on K-Time in a Persian-dubbed version or with Persian subtitles, a useful option for families raising children between two languages. Reading this page costs nothing and needs no account; to play the episodes, sign in to K-Time. Menus and episode lists appear in Farsi throughout.