Mwah! Goodnight, Everybody!

I've been wanting to write something about Animaniacs (or, if you're pedantic about reading the full title on the screen, "Steven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs"), which was pretty much my favourite TV show when I was in college. It wasn't even on in Montreal, where I was studying, so I would get my parents to tape it at home and then run home on various weekends, mostly to watch the tapes. It's hard to remember just how popular it was for the couple of years it was on the Fox network; the alt.tv.animaniacs newsgroup was huge, and it was looking like a genuine cult phenomenon. Indeed, I think that at its peak it had a bigger cult following, among college students at least, than Ren and Stimpy.

Now, alas, it's mostly forgotten; it's not running anywhere and there's no DVD as yet (though WB Home Video executives have said they're considering it). It was a victim of changing tastes in "kids' shows." When it started, the fashion was for kids' shows that appealed just as much to adults. By the time it moved to the WB network a few years later, networks were looking for shows that appealed exclusively to children and especially to very young children. Animaniacs and other shows like it were crushed by the Godzilla-like foot of the Pokemon movement.

I don't have time right now to write a piece on why I liked the show so much, so for now I'll link to this article I wrote a few years ago (it was supposed to be the first of a series, but I was never able to write more). Remember, the password is "Froinleven."