The Animaniacs Bible
Animaniacs (and its spin-off, Pinky & The Brain) was one of my favourite cartoons of the 90's, so I was quite excited when I found this Animaniacs Bible, which details the ideas behind the show and its characters. Surprisingly enough for such a seemingly anarchic show, its plot structures are laid quite quite rigidly, as you can see in the "Show Format" and "The Formula for Warner Bros Cartoons" pages. Now that I come to think of it, most of the show's episodes did roughly follow the structure as laid out in this document! I guess that says a lot about the formulaic nature of modern TV writing, even in cartoons, and why even the best Animaniacs cartoon, while a good deal better than the Warner Brothers cartoons that preceded it as well as those that have come since (except for the 90's Batman and Superman animated series, and possibly Justice League), just can't hold a candle to their classic Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons.
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