Not only could you get your daily dose of slapstick (and how), but also it had educational songs that actually stuck, wrapped in layers of slyly referential humor that rewarded you for paying attention-and for being able to get the references.

It felt, at the time, as though it had infinite layers. I could tell you anything you'd like to know about the Hollywood studio system, the music of George Frideric Handel, or the rise and fall of the Soviet bloc, but I couldn't name more than two of 1993's Top 40 songs if you'd paid me.Īnd along came Animaniacs, a kids' show that didn't talk down to me. I was the only child of two classical musicians, one of whom was also a politics junkie and total history buff. I was in middle school when Animaniacs began airing, right on the cusp of an exceptionally awkward and uncomfortable adolescence.

And that suited me perfectly because I was, frankly, a pretty weird kid. Further Reading Hulu brings back that irreverent magic with trailer for Animaniacs rebootĪnimaniacs was, in the end, a pretty weird show, equal parts absurdist and educational.

Download the animaniacs 2020