Anamaniacs Cartoon Finally on DVD - What Took so Long?!

The late 80s and early 90s saw a renaissance of animation. Starting with the Tiny Toon Adventures, the classic Warner Brothers style of comedy mixed with amusing sight gags began to reappear on the small screen. With Steven Speilberg backing the Warner Brothers animation studio, the Anamaniacs were developed and put into production, calling on a very talented crew of professional voice actors.

And thus were born the Warner Brothers, and their sister Dot. Yakko, Wakko and Dot Warner were a throwback, as it were, to the old days of Bugs Bunny cartoons - slapstick and spontaneous visual puns with punctuated verbal comedy that the kids were sure to miss. Added to the main trio were supporting characters such as Slappy the Squirrel - an aged star of the 30s and 40s Golden Era cartoons, Pinky and the Brain - a pair of laboratory mice set on world domination, and Rita and Runt - a dog and cat team searching for a home (or at least a fresh meal!). There was no overarching storyline. There was no continuity. There was just the comedy.

And now, some ten years later, the cartoon is FINALLY out on DVD.

Was it worth the wait? It's hard to say. Season 1 has some fine points to it. The 'Goodfeathers' doing West Side Story. Rita and Runt doing 'Les Miserables' (Les Miseranimals) and the entertaining pilot episode in which we see how Dr. Scratchensniff loses his hair. The entire first season is presented in the set, spanning multiple DVDs. The chapter-skip function permitted me to avoid the title sequence and went from short to short. That was a great aspect because, as anyone who watches TV-DVDs knows, you can only stand the title sequence so many times...

While the quality of the sound and animation has not changed, I was bit a let down by the 'special features' aspect of the DVD. But the 'special feature' entitled Animaniacs Live, was a big let down. It had Maurice Lemarsh (aka The Brain and the burping voice of Wakko) talking via remote satelitte to the voice personalities of the show. We learned a little about the music, about the auditions, and a bit about Steven Speilberg's involvement. It had clips from somewhat relevant episodes intermixed. It was rather dull and slow-paced, especially with the clips interrupting commentary flow from those involved. On top of it being rather dull, it was the ONLY bit of DVD addition tacked on.

It would have been more interesting to have the commentary from directors and voice-actors on the individual episodes. I've seen them perform live and they're much livelier than they were on the DVD feature. It was putting me to sleep...

I would highly recommend the 1st Season Set to anyone who grew up on these cartoons, wants their kids to grow up on these cartoons, and anyone who loves animated shorts. I'd skip the "Special Features" and just watch the cartoons.

One can only hope they would release the second set with better features. I'll still buy it, but I won't be quite too happy.