Animaniacs Review: The 2020 Hulu Revival, Season by Season

Animaniacs review: the 2020 Hulu revival explained

Animaniacs began as a 1993 Fox Kids cartoon created by Tom Ruegger, with Steven Spielberg as executive producer and production by Amblin Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation. It ran for five seasons and 99 episodes, made up of 274 segments, and finished on November 14, 1998. It moved to Kids' WB on September 9, 1995. Over its run, it collected eight Daytime Emmy awards and a Peabody Award, which is a lot of hardware for a show about three cartoon siblings locked in a studio water tower.

Hulu ordered a revival in May 2017, initially for two seasons. The first season premiered on November 20, 2020, the second on November 5, 2021, and a third and final season on February 17, 2023. Across the three seasons there are 36 episodes: 13, 13 and 10. Wellesley Wild is the showrunner, with Steven Spielberg, Justin Falvey, Darryl Frank and Sam Register among the executive producers.

The premise of the revival is that the Warner siblings return after 22 years off television and get into trouble while adapting to the 21st century. Yakko, Wakko and Dot cause chaos around the studio lot, and most episodes also include a Pinky and the Brain segment, in which an intelligent lab mouse plots world domination and his dim partner tends to wreck the plan. The Rough Cut Review piece praised the first season as a fun tribute to childhood and to the nostalgia of the original, while still feeling oddly modern.

The review's headline claim is about tone. It says the season gets to a level of zany beyond the max, and it credits that to the show's use of both animation and song. The songs, it says, are wacky and memorable, and they poke fun at how pop culture and technology have changed over the decades. Its example is the pilot, where the music does the heaviest lifting. The review's advice for anyone who likes that style is to expect a lot more of it.

The voice cast that came back

The main cast returned. Rob Paulsen voices Yakko and Pinky, Jess Harnell voices Wakko, Tress MacNeille voices Dot, and Maurice LaMarche voices the Brain. Frank Welker is Ralph T. Guard and Stephanie Escajeda plays Nora Rita Norita. The review treats the continuity of the voices as the revival's biggest advantage: the performances are superb and embrace the best of what the actors used to do with the characters.

That matters for a show that lives on timing and vocal energy. A cartoon built on rapid-fire wordplay, patter songs and impressions would stumble with new voices. Having the originals back is the clearest signal that the production wanted to preserve what worked and change the context around it.

What the original did, and why a revival made sense

The review notes that Animaniacs was a hit of the 1990s animation boom and popularized meta-comedy, a style of humor that matched the rise of search engines and the internet. That makes it a good candidate for a comeback, because the show's way of talking to the audience over the characters' heads has only become more common. The revival leans into that history. It knows it is a revival and says so, in jokes aimed at nostalgia, streaming and the way old properties return.

Where the new segments fit

The revival adds recurring segments of its own. Wikipedia lists Starbox and Cindy, The Incredible Gnome in People's Mouths, Math-terpiece Theater and Everyday Safety. They share the schedule with the Warners and with Pinky and the Brain, who are the show's two most reliable acts. The review observes that the series has become tighter in concept than the original, with a stronger focus on the Warners and then on Pinky and the Brain, and only an occasional original sketch.

Animaniacs revival seasons at a glance

Dates and episode counts from Wikipedia's article on the 2020 series, linked in the sources below.

What the Animaniacs revival changes: satire, style and Pinky and the Brain

The most interesting thing about the revival is how much of its energy comes from commentary on change. Like Futurama after its long hiatus, the review says, Animaniacs modernizes itself by poking fun at what is different now. The characters are 20 years out of date, so they learn and embrace smartphones, drones, social media, self-celebrity and YouTube culture. With two decades of material to poke at, the season is more meta than ever and is not embarrassed about being tongue-in-cheek about its own return in an era of revivals.

The review's favorite material is the political satire. It argues that the best bits are in how the show looks at the modern political landscape, and that the writers have a fondness for parody that matches the original's roots in a less polarized era. It adds a note that the season would have felt sharper closer to an election. Among the jokes it names are allegorical parodies and an episode about the necessity of bun control, an overpopulation of bunnies. Readers should treat these as the reviewer's reading of the material; the show's targets are broad and its jokes lean on exaggeration.

The animation, in the review's description, is vibrant: a modern digital finish that still holds true to the cartoony Looney Tunes flair. Themed episodes change the art style entirely, with a parody episode aimed at Russia and Vladimir Putin, an anime-styled homage, and a take on the cuteness of the Lego Movie. The review says the animation is more creative than ever and is surpassed only by the excellent musical numbers, which carry powerful yet silly messages about how much has changed in twenty years.

Pinky and the Brain in the revival

Pinky and the Brain get the review's longest single example. The Brain plays Doctor Frankenstein quite a bit this season, creating his own kinds of monsters, and it is obvious that he is seeking a family or another friend beyond Pinky. Pinky, the review adds, is more self-aware after 22 years of therapy. In strange ways, the pair's attempts at world domination grow their characters, and the show uses them to comment on how much power people give to celebrity and to a culture of instant gratification, a pun the review makes on Instagram.

The point is that the revival lets the duo evolve. In the original, the formula was fixed: a plan, then a failure. Here the formula is still visible, but with enough change that the pair can be funny and a little melancholy at once.

What did not come back

The review notes some absences. There is no Slappy Squirrel, Buttons and Mindy, or the Goodfeathers parody pigeons in the first season. It also points to a new Warner Bros. CEO who is a woman, a character it describes as less the 1990s business villain and more a 2020s corporate executive full of trends, multitasking and dietary rules. For fans of the older ensemble, the review's reassurance is that the elements the show does bring back are done with great hilarity.

Why the review keeps coming back to Futurama

The review's closest comparison is Futurama, which returned to Comedy Central after a long seven-year hiatus. Futurama, it says, did very well because of its looser censorship on cable and its embrace of the current climate. Animaniacs uses the same technique of acknowledging the gap in time, but it stands out in the way it never breaks the bank: it stays inside its genre as a children's comedy while feeling semi-adult. Where Futurama pushed to the edge to announce its return, Animaniacs fits a new generation of children and still reaches the older viewers who grew up with it.

A second comparison is Adventure Time, a children's series that touches adult themes while feeling childlike. The review says Animaniacs does something similar, and that is the best short description of its appeal. The jokes can be read at two levels, the way the original's jokes were, but the revival's second level is about modern life: apps, outrage, branding and the weariness of being asked to feel nostalgic on demand.

After season 1: renewals, awards and the end of the Animaniacs revival

The second season arrived on November 5, 2021. Hulu ordered the 10-episode third season in February 2021, and in December 2022 it was announced that the third season would be the show's last, with a premiere on February 17, 2023. Wikipedia describes the third season as the third and final season and does not use the word canceled, so this page does not either.

Recognition came in the form of Daytime Emmys. The show won for Outstanding Voice Directing, credited to Sara Jane Sherman, for Outstanding Original Song, for Suffragette City, and for Outstanding Individual in Animation, credited to Karl Hadrika, and it shared an editing win with Hilda. It was also nominated by the Producers Guild of America Awards in 2021 and 2022, at the Children's and Family Emmys in 2023, and at the Annie Awards in 2024. Suffragette City is credited to Jess Lacher, Andrew Barbot, Roddy Hart and Tommy Reilly.

Critically, Wikipedia records 81% on Rotten Tomatoes from 37 reviews for the first season, with an average of 7.2 out of 10, and IGN's Jesse Schedeen gave it 8 out of 10, calling it a mostly witty and faithful update to an old favorite. The second season scored 100% from six reviews. Critics of the first season often cited the loss of the original producers' involvement and a weaker satirical bite, which is a useful counterpoint to the more enthusiastic Rough Cut Review view.

As for where to watch, Hulu was the original home. Wikipedia notes that the show also streamed in Canada on Teletoon and in Latin America on Cartoon Network, and that it streams on HBO Max and Stan in some regions. Streaming catalogs change often, so check a current listing.

A viewing guide for the three seasons

Season 1, with 13 episodes, is the one the Rough Cut Review piece covers and the one most viewers will want to start with. It resets the premise, introduces the new satire and carries the strongest tie to the original series. If the pilot's songs and the Pinky and the Brain segments work for you, the rest of the revival will too.

Season 2 follows with another 13 episodes and keeps the same mix of Warner sketches, Pinky and the Brain and the newer recurring segments. Its early critical numbers on Wikipedia are small in sample but strong. Season 3 is the shortest at 10 episodes and carries the announcement that it is the last, so it works as a closing stretch and not as a cliffhanger.

Because each episode is built from short segments, the show is easy to sample. A viewer can watch a single Pinky and the Brain piece or a standalone song and get a fair sense of the style, which is another reason the revival suits families who dip in and out.

Verdict: should you watch Animaniacs?

The review says yes without qualification. It has not enjoyed a revival this much, it says, since Futurama, and it describes the comedy as Adventure Time level, with funny musical pieces, brilliant meta-comedy writing and clever takes on current times. The core argument is that Animaniacs does something rare: it stays a children's comedy while feeling semi-adult, and it bridges the gap between old and new generations better than most returning series.

Is that still fair on a rewatch? Mostly. The jokes about phones, streaming and politics date quickly, and some of the satire's targets have changed. The musical numbers and the Pinky and the Brain segments hold up best, because they depend on timing and character and not on headlines. The first season is also the one most closely tied to the original's style. If you loved the 1990s show, start there.

A fair caution is that critics were more divided than the Rough Cut Review piece. Wikipedia reports that reviewers of the first season often said the revival lacked the original producers and had a weaker satirical bite. Both opinions can be right: a show can be a fun, generous return and still be a step down from a classic. For families, the review argues that it is a good bridge between viewers who grew up with the first show and the children they now have.

The simplest recommendation is to sample the pilot and its song. If the opening hour makes you laugh, the rest of the three seasons will do the same.

Sources

• Animaniacs (2020 TV series), Wikipedia — Seasons, dates, cast, segments, awards and reception of the revival.
• Animaniacs, Wikipedia — Original series credits, dates, episode count and awards.