Animaniacs

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, I assumed some bad blood happened if they didn't tell him earlier, let alone offer him a producer gig on the new show.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Looking back, it was a bad idea to release all the new episodes in one batch instead of weekly. Not just because now there's a longer wait time for Animaniacs fans in between seasons (or halves of seasons? I've heard conflicting stories), but the show is difficult on binges. When watching multiple episodes of show at once instead of one a day or a week, you notice how many times they reuse the same jokes with little difference. The biggest fault with many of Ruegger's shows is that for many characters, the running gag is all they have. It was already a well-established problem with Katie Kaboom or Mindy & Buttons, but binging magnifies the flaw onto every skit with a few exceptions. And when anyone can watch these shows at any time instead of relying on a Kids WB schedule, these faults stand out more.

[Commode]

I've honestly always had that problem with the original Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain, has always been a tough binge show for me.  When I bought the first DVD sets like 15 years ago(Christ) I noticed how difficult it was to sit through numerous episodes of each show at once.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, most of the recurring segments are too heavy on running gags and Mad Libs-ing all their jokes, it's rigidly formulaic. I know Tiny Toons is rougher around the edges, but at least it had more flexibility. Even your average Elmyra skit had more variety than Goodfeathers.

[Daikun]

Season 2 is coming November 5.

Here's the trailer.

[Daikun]

Season 2 is up now.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Watched a few episodes. Unfortunately, I think the new car smell of getting fresh Animaniacs episodes for the first time in over 20 years lost its luster here. They weren't very funny, and it's even more obvious the scripts were written years ago. The My Super Sweet 16, Banksy, and Fortnite jokes were especially dated. And the political humor, already dated a year ago, is necrotic.

I also noticed Nancy Cartwright and Frank Welker were in an episode's credits together, and I wished they were playing Buttons and Mindy again for a skit. The Warners/P&TB/Warners episode formula is so tired it led me to miss fucking Buttons and Mindy.

[Daxdiv]

Season 3 of the reboot is confirmed to be the final season
Well, that didn't last long.

[Dr. Insomniac]

How much of this was Zaslav, how much was the show being unsuitable to the "dump a bunch of episodes about once a year" model, and how much was the show's already discussed flaws?

And please no "Yes" answer.

[Daxdiv]

Still trying to find people that worked on it talking about how it's the end. Not sure how much Zaslav had to do with this, I know he tried to make TBS talk to Disney/Fox about cancelling/getting out of the contract responsible for the new American Dad episodes. Cause I would have figured that since Hulu streams the show, that they would be responsible for wanting more episodes made or not. Though like with the aforementioned American Dad thing & how even Craig of the Creek had it's episode order cut short, I can see Zaslav going "Stop production on this" due to thinking it would save money.

I'm not a big fan of the "Drop everything all at once" approach, since I don't think I remember anyone talking about Season 2 when it did drop, so I do sometimes feel that the "dump all of the season's episodes when ready" model does hurt it. Especially with how Animaniacs in general wasn't meant to be binged all at once & even after trying to watch the new series, I had to take a break or 2 after a few episodes because of that factor. You would have thought that something made today would be more streamer friendly compared to a show in the 90s where I don't even think that people would have seen things like streaming/complete box sets for TV shows.

[Avaitor]

Without the side characters to balance things out, it has to be hard to binge the show. The Warners and Pinky and the Brain's formulas can get pretty thin pretty fast.

Although I wonder if the show ending was also Disney/Hulu's idea, to get as much of their rival's content out as possible. While Zaslav has seemed to embrace earning revenue from as many factions as possible, Chapek was gung-ho on streaming being it, and it does appear that Disney is ready to merge Hulu into their adult-friendly section of Disney+.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I don't know. Zaslav recently tried to play hardball with Netflix over Sandman. So there's probably some wrangling going on from his end.

Also saw a guy try to push #RenewAnimaniacs as a hashtag, and I sympathize, but it's not like this show has loose plot threads or anything that narratively gets lost if it ends this season. Besides, if you count both this and the old show, Animaniacs has 8 seasons. Just rewatch that.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Too bad it took until the last episode to do it.