#yes i miss them so much so i'm rewatching old interviews what about it

[rakumel]

It's been....a while...since I last talked about anything Animaniacs related. I wound up not really liking the first season of the 2020 reboot, so I didn't bother trying to find a way to watch the second one.

But a few months ago, the library where I work acquired both seasons of the reboot on DVD. And well, I kinda toyed with the idea of trying to watch it again, now that it was a lot easier to do so. Animaniacs was once be a big part of my childhood, after all. Hard to just shut it out completely.

Right before the 4th of July weekend, I broke down and checked out the first season DVDs. I had that day off anyway, was going to be alone, and honestly wasn't feeling very patriotic. (Basically a typical 4th weekend for me, honestly. One year I "celebrated" by staying in and watching both Blade Runner films.)

Anyway, I didn't get around to watching that evening, but I tried again during the next long weekend I had available (this past one). So far I've only watched the first seven episodes. It's taking longer than it usually would because I'm taking notes this time around - in case I want to do a proper episode by episode review in the near future.

Still, even this far in, was the reboot as bad as I remembered? Yes and no. There were some high points that I'd forgotten about; mostly in the first and last episodes on the disc. Some of the cartoon titles are clever, like "Suspended Animation" and "France France Revolution" (seriously, I love that). And there was at least an effort to stay true to the original spirit of the original show while also adapting the new one for today's audience; in a few instances they actually succeeded very well. (Putting Yakko in a rap battle was fantastic. I just wish it had ended a little better.) And most of the Pinky and the Brain episodes I've rewatched so far are very much in keeping with the original.

But....well. (Here I take a deep breath and sigh. Sadly.) Out of all the episodes I've watched so far, I've laughed maybe...twice. And that's being generous. There are a few genuinely good bits, but a lot of the writing just isn't that great. There's a nuance the old show had that's missing in the new, plus they have a bad habit of just reaching a stopping point instead of a proper ending. A lot of times the cartoon would be over, and I'd just be sitting there baffled, or feeling pissed because the ending was just that rushed or stupid. The trademark pop culture references are fine, and they don't over-rely on them (which is good), but even when I'm in on the jokes they're weirdly not that funny.

And then there's the overemphasis on gross-out things. Sure, the old show had its gross-out moments too, but I don't remember them being nearly as prevalent and gratuitous as they are in the new show.

For example, in the last episode I watched, there was a scene in which a woman is reunited with her beloved poodle, Gigi. She hugs Gigi (aww), and then for several awkward seconds Gigi licks her owner's puckered lips in slow motion, complete with copious amounts of animated drool (eww). Then the woman takes a dog treat, chews it up, and opens her mouth to feed it to Gigi, baby bird style (wtf?!?).

Like...I get it. They wanted to show how dedicated this lady was to her dog in an over-the-top way. (Or, if there were an interview where one of the animators said they based that scene off of something they literally saw a dog owner do, it wouldn't surprise me.) But it's still nasty, plus my god you've not only made your point, you've clubbed me over the head with it. MOVE ON. And that's not the grossest thing in the season either.

Speaking of gross, I don't know what it is about the human characters in the reboot, but aside from the new WB CEO all of them look hideous. I still can't put my finger on why exactly, especially since the Warners themselves look just fine. In fact they're a little wilder looking, with fuzzy hair (head fur?) and occasional fangs, and I really like it. It's not the exaggerated features; human characters on the old show had those too and it...didn't bother me then? I just don't know. My best guess is that they've got a Ren and Stimpy vibe to them (which goes with the gross-out stuff), and I never liked that show. I don't care how original or boundary-pushing it was at the time. It's just never been my thing.

Finally, and it's a very very minor thing but it's a little disappointing all the same: they don't quip after the end credits anymore. Boo.

I still don't know yet if I want to expand this into a proper episode review, if I even have the time. I may wind up just putting my thoughts down on some of the better or more famous episodes. But I am curious enough to try the second season, to see if it got any better. My instinct tells me no, but I want to be fair and give it a chance.

I'm also struggling with describing why the irreverence of the original Animaniacs show is endearing to me, but the new one's is off-putting. You could argue it's just nostalgia, and you wouldn't be totally wrong, but I know it's more than that. It's not that one is crass and the other isn't; both of them absolutely are. It's more like...with the old show, when it was crass, I found myself asking things like: "How do we define "high" art anyway?" and "Okay, I just watched the Warners do a swing number for baby Jesus. Was that utterly and irredeemably irreverent, or was it the most genuine gift of themselves they could give, thereby staying true to the message of the song 'Little Drummer Boy' and not actually breaking any taboos whatsoever?"

Whereas when the new show is crass, I ask myself things like, "Did they really need to show them licking a diseased pigeon that close up?" and "Am I wasting my life, watching this?" and "Oh god why? WHY?? Where is the brain bleach??!"

[handonhaven]

So I just saw this post that made me mad but also made me laugh all at once. The post pretty much said that Handon is the most hated ship in the fandom and that even actress Danielle Rose Russel hates Handon and called them dragged out. That Handon only purpose was the bring Hope out of shell. And that Handon is a mother son relationship. It just goes on like that(and you can tell a H*ise made that post). It just made me laugh because 1 Danielle never said she hates Handon, I think she's one of the biggest handon shippers I've seen. I've seen so many people say at the beginning she was, but she still is now. 2 she never called Handon dragged. People are really still twisting around that interview she did back in March. When she talked about Handon she said she was really excited about where Handon is going. And that part where she said "dragged out to get to this point" she wasn't talking about handon(it was a while after she stopped talking about handon when she said that) and even though she didn't state what she meant by that she could have been talking about anything, the malilandon plot, Hope finally putting herself first. But I guess antis decided to forget about the part where she said she was really excited about where Handon is going. And when they heard dragged out just decided that Danielle was talking about Handon even though she wasn't.

Also that part about the only purpose for Handon was to bring Hope out of shell is just not a very good argument or even true. Because if that was the case handon would have been over after s1, they wouldn't have kept them together. Even Brett said in an interview back in June that Landon is one of the, if not the most important person in Hopes life. Whenever I see people say stuff like that I'm truly convinced that they're watching a completely different show.

And let's be honest the only mother/child relationship on the show is between Hope and that school. They go to her with every little problem they have. They expect her to put the school and them over herself all the time(just like a mother would for their child). And then when she does put herself first for once they act like she's betrayed them.

P.s sorry to vent/rant like this. It's just whenever I see stuff like that I get a little upset. And not because they took the time to twist around and make up stuff. It's that they tag Handon in it, so we can see it, probably thinking it's some type of win for them(kind of like how they think the new staff writer is gonna give them a win, but that's a whole other thing that I don't want to get into right now). I can get not liking a ship and wanting your ship to happen and I know ship wars are a thing no matter fandom your on. But can they just stay off our tags. Because it honestly feels like they're more obsessed with Handon than we are.

I’m not even surprised, sounds like the same old stuff. Yeah, Danielle has never expressed that she hates Handon, quite the opposite. Ikr, she still likes Handon, why else would she have suggested Hope sing a love song to Landon if she only liked Handon in the beginning? If she hates Handon so much now, why did she say in that March interview how excited she was about Handon this last season and how big a part Landon has played in Hope’s character arc and how much she’s enjoyed playing how that has impacted Hope? In a season where Hope’s love for Landon was solidified more than ever, and she fought for him all season long? Do they honestly think that if she hated Handon that she would’ve been acting that happy and excited in that interview, and voluntarily bringing up Handon throughout the interview without being asked?

And yes, she never said Handon’s relationship in general was dragged out. They really do twist everything and completely ignore the last part of her sentence where she said she thought “it was a bit dragged out to get to this point.” And now that we know there was no Handon breakup, we know she didn’t mean she thought it was dragged out to get to the point of them breaking up, so why are people still holding onto that? And she actually was talking about Handon when she said that, I went back to rewatch that bit to make sure and she was responding to a question about Handon. But I don’t see that as anything negative about Handon at all, because if Danielle thought things were dragged out to get to this point for Handon’s relationship, what point did Handon get to? Yes, they’ve been in a horrible situation all this time and have been apart when they haven’t wanted to be, and they have a lot more crap to deal with, but Hope’s love for Landon is as strong as ever and she’s determined to fight fate to be with him. So how does this help the antis? But like you said, Danielle didn’t say what exactly she meant. She said it was a “long time coming between the characters,” so she could’ve been referring to Malilandon, or Hope and Landon coming to terms with their fate and fighting that, or yeah, she could’ve meant Hope putting herself first and fighting for her happiness with Landon when she struggled with that in the first two seasons. Which was dragged out imo, it took a while for Hope to get this point where she believes that she and Landon can be together and be happy, and that they don’t have to be doomed. And it’s taken a while to get the point where they’re really facing Malivore as well, so Danielle could’ve been referring to any of these things. But however I look at it, I don’t see how it means anything bad about Handon when you consider the context of how she said “dragged out” as well as what happened with Handon this last season. But yep, people will pick and choose what they want to hear and what they want it to mean, while ignoring all the positive things Danielle said about Handon.

And yeah, if people think the purpose of Handon was only to get Hope “out of her shell”, they’re really just not watching the show. Hope and Landon’s relationship has done so much more than that, it’s helped both Hope and Landon grow and develop as characters in so many ways. And if I went into all of those ways, this post would become even longer, I could write a whole other post about it. But it’s crazy how people totally miss so much of what goes on in the show. And true, Handon wouldn’t have lasted if that was their only purpose, and Brett certainly wouldn’t have said that about them either.

My gosh, not the “mother/son” thing... yeah, when it comes to Hope protecting others like a mother would, yes to all you said, you’re right. Once again, people pay no attention to the fact that Hope protects and saves everyone at the school all the time and how dependent they are on her, how they expect her to do everything for them. Meanwhile, Landon actually tries, he doesn’t expect Hope to do everything on her own and doesn’t want her to either. He has continuously done whatever he can to help Hope and is always trying to be better. Hope and Landon are a team, and that has been stated on the show, Hope literally called them a power couple. Yet those people really keep comparing their relationship, a romantic relationship, to a mother/son relationship? I can’t...

And I get that, it’s definitely so annoying how they’ll tag Handon in their stuff, it can make it almost impossible to avoid hate sometimes. Yeah, it seems they do just wanna take what they think is a win and rub it in Handon fans’ faces. Exactly, the least they could do is stay out of the tags. It makes it so obvious what they’re trying to do when they don’t. Haha yeah, it really does seem like they’re more obsessed with Handon than Handon fans sometimes with the amount of time they spend hating on them. It’s pretty sad.

[elizabethrobertajones]

So, I have this question and I thought I'd send it here :) What are your thoughts on Sam x fashion aside from the crack? Do you have early Sam x fashion meta? I'm feeling it's reflective of his making his own choices as he had wacky weird fashion sense in earlier seasons then during the time he follows Dean cos guilt copies Dean's lumberjack style until season 12 when he gets some weird clothes again (orange jacket cough). I kinda hope we see him in wacky fashion now he's more independent again?

hahahaha

I feel kind of like the asshole cat who’s always knocking things over until someone comes to give me attention

But no, yeah. Sam’s clothes are weird, man. Weird. *shuffles the purple dog shirt to the bottom of my drawer of t-shirts*

In season 1 his quintessential look to me is the brown hoodie and backpack, and sometimes the leather laptop satchel he has. He could be wandering on a college campus, and that’s intentional, because, well, that was what he had been doing. He has t-shirts with things on them, favouring purple and dark red for symbolic reasons but he does have a couple of different designs of each if you squint.

I always like the immediately established pattern that Sam and Dean essentially wear the same clothes with minor differences, but that Sam ALWAYS buttons up his shirt, and Dean ALWAYS leaves his loose. It’s the no. 1 thing that bugs me about fan art of the two of them, that I can tell casual “Lol just dipping into this fandom” art immediately because they’ll depict Dean with a buttoned up shirt or Sam with his open and loose. Sam wears his open in like… 4x07 when he was half-undressed, and Dean wears a button up shirt in 6x01 and 9x13 in a job interview. I may be missing some others but that’s like… in all my years of caring about this and rewatching the show with a meta mind, and keeping half an eye on their clothes in case of Symbolism, I don’t see much variation. (Also: Sam always wears v-necks once the patterns get entrenched, and Dean always wears round necks.)

Of course, the easiest explanation is Sam keeps his shirt buttoned because Secrets and Deep Hidden Layers, while Dean wears his heart on his sleeve slightly more literally, in that his shirt is flapping open exposing the t-shirt beneath, and of course he has the amulet to accent that look for the first 3rd of the show, hanging over his heart. (Dean also is the only one of them who wears henleys, ever. Sam just wears a t-shirt exposed when he’s being vulnerable, while Dean has a little more variation.)

Anyways. Sam’s look is less practical than Dean’s - more white shirts, more dressy shirts to start with. The godawful white one with the red patterning underneath. Pin-stripes. He has patterns and Dean has block colours. Even as the show goes on, Sam collects shirts with stripes and mixes them in with wearing plaid, all in the same manner. I think that is basically again a little link back to the early costuming.

One of the funniest moments of the show to me at the time when it was about all the canon we had, was in 6x18 when Sam’s only concession to time travelling is to change his shirt, and he pulls it off in comparison to Dean’s wildly over-enthusiastic time travelling, and issues with it and eventual re-costuming, again into a whole ensemble. I think that particularly tells us about Sam that he doesn’t really sweat the details like Dean does because his surface layer is such a strong, placid force that people don’t question it. In 8x11 Dean dresses up and Sam stays in his fed suit for most of the episode, and it doesn’t cause him problems in anywhere near the same way. In both episodes there’s a lot more to say about Dean and his need to fit in/exuberance to dress up and be someone else, but I do love the light it shines on contrast to Sam, that somehow his lack of caring about his clothes just beams out and makes everyone else not really care that much either. 

But yeah, Sam’s shirts get more interchangeable with Dean as time goes on - he starts wearing some of the same colours, and they have shirts I am sure that in a non-TV world where the costume department takes care of this for them they’d always be mixing them up and accidentally wearing each other’s clothes. Or at least putting them on and then Sam stares in disbelief at how his arm grew another 2 inches overnight and - wait a minute this is one of Dean’s shirts.

(Dean also got a shirt in season 12 with the same pocket buttons as Sam’s rusty bacon shirt, but I think it was a block colour shirt. Of course.) 

Although Sam would never, ever wear the denim shirts Dean does. It’s that sneaky little class divide between them again. Not a major thing, but Sam’s striped shirts vs Dean’s denim and henleys does tell the tale, that no matter how much closer their style seems to get, Sam’s always got that different backstory to his fashion. 

(In 3x12 the close up of their feet always makes me notice Dean’s jeans are all fraying and old and Sam’s look new. I think for one thing Sam had to start mostly from scratch after season 1 because he took just a weekend of clothes with him to Jericho. But also just that maybe he has slightly more pride in his clothes while Dean will wear out whatever he can wear out (that doesn’t get too torn or weirdly stained.) I like in 3x11 you get the contrast to their ways of living and hunting with Dean clearly the controlling factor in the boot of the impala being all messy and esoterically organised and Sam locking it down in moulded foam to hold everything… Dean having scruffy trouser legs, dream catchers in the boot of the car, all that jewellery, on the other hand, makes me feel like he’s got much more of an instinctive, stylistic connection to the job as a *lifestyle* rather than a *job*, which was an old theme…

Oh gosh what else :P Well Sam’s new jackets… Yes okay I do actually love he’s getting new jackets which stand out so much as actually being items of clothing instead of boring camouflage/background radiation to being a hunter. You got me >.> I still think Sam’s got a baseline dodgy approach to clothes and style but it’s sort of quirky. It’s VERY Sam to get a red shirt under an orange jacket or to wear a jacket with a plaid lining over a plaid shirt. I mean… I would dress just as badly because it’s still practical over style in many ways. 

I also wonder about his shoes because Dean’s boots or at least combat boots in general would be more practical in their line of work and they’re always being accused of dressing in army surplus, but Sam started off wearing trainers and I swear he never wore them on screen but I just headcanon him in converse all stars anywhere in like season 1 and 2 because it goes with the whole student/overgrown child thing the hoodie and backpack did… But anyway his shoes are more grown up styles now but he still doesn’t exactly dress for the JOB, while Dean’s always wearing good boots. I always remember an ex of mine wore similar shoes to Sam and I, being me, had a reputation for being pretty wonky and useless, and we were walking and it began raining, and we were in this plaza with slippery tiles, and my ex was like, “DON’T RUN, YOU’LL DIE” but I was wearing boots with a tread? And I legged it. And he was slippy sliding after me, barely able to function in the rain on a smooth surface. And I was watching from the shelter. 

(PS: the moral of this meta is don’t date me unless you understand we are 2 completely autonomous humans because I am awful at being a team player or at willingly getting soaked because you wore the wrong shoes :P)