The Animaniacs was a big touchstone for people of a certain generation. So, when we got the chance to participate in a press junket to interview the cast, we jumped at the opportunity. Herein, we discuss the origin of the voices, why certain characters are missing, and how they’ve changed between the original series and the reboot. This was a great experience. We really hope you all enjoy this interview Let us know what you think in the comments below!
Animaniacs Questions PT 1
JIM ALEXANDER: What is it like doing this for a social media new generation?? Has it changed for guys? Are you guys just older? What is it like doing this now?
Tress: Jess is older I’m not really. We kept in touch with the newer generation of fans at various Comic-Cons, events, and performances. You know fans bring their children who are also fans or just being introduced to the show so we’re able to meet them or get along with them and take them with our fantastic powers. So we’re not a stranger to the new fans.
Jess: The thing that’s nice about it man what you liked about then at its heart Animaniacs is a subversive satire about pop culture and political events disguised as a musical kids show and it was that then and it’s that now right; it’s the same basic principles except to tell you the truth man we have more stuff to make fun of now then we did then. Man think how much more ridiculous things have gotten in the world at large since the ’90s, so there is no better time. We’re just doing what we always did. We just have a bigger field of topics to choose from.
Tress: We’re not evil
Question 2
TESSA: Hey guys thanks for the time today. I grew up on the show. I have kids who I introduced to the show. they were just as excited when I told them there was gonna be a new Animaniacs. What I want to know is, Gabe, my eight year old really wanted to know why wasn’t buttons brought back?
Tress: Oh really a buttons fan.
Gabe: Well I mean plain and simple we wanted to bring a bunch of new characters to the show and really highlight the characters that are the core of the show we call those the Warner brothers and pinky and the brain are the center of the show and we wanted to really push them forward and then the original show that’s what they did with the original show too they had-those writers came up with those characters our writers will come up with our own characters so that was our approach.
Tress: speaking of buttons and Mindy and buttons today is Nancy Cartwright’s birthday?
Jess: that’s great you should say on social media I love ya goodbye. She’ll love that.
Gabe: she been on the show, too, though.
Jess: yeah you never know and the thing about it Tessa we do 15 seasons of this you’ll probably see everybody.
Question 3?
Michael: Jess, given that you and your costars have so many voices in your arsenal that I would imagine that way back in the day you had a lot of options about how Wakko would sound so do you remember any of the conversations from back then regarding possible voices? how did the decision come about to give me a distinctly different accent from Yakko and Dot?
Jess: you phrased that so eloquently.
Tress: I know I thought that was a beautiful story-
Jess: the cool thing about it man and I’ll tell you Michael it’s like I like to encourage kids as much as I can and one of the things I say to them is to think outside the box, sometimes and Do something that other people might not be doing I originally my first audition for Wakko was just a crazy cartoony ‘wacko’ kinda voice like what you’d expect I don’t have any idea what I did but I want in for the callback and our voice director Andrea Romano who was our fantastic voice director on the original run of the show said I know you do impressions why don’t we try some impressions the first one we did was Elvis which could have been very embarrassing because if Elvis had a potty emergency it wouldn’t have been very funny.
Tress: he probably did.
Jess: yea the way things turned out. Then she said why don’t you do it like the Beatles I said well which do you want? She said don’t they all sound the same? No there different of course they are because John’s voice is sort of centered in his nose.
Ox is round and friendly this sort of thing Then there’s George who always sounds like he has a cold and was congested to me. Then there’s Ringo, peace and love peace and love yellow submarine. So they said why don’t you try it like John. I went great then I started talking like this and I saw a picture and I saw that he was very small I said well we can’t have a grown man’s voice so I made him little I gave him some helium and I said hello nurse and that was it and that’s where we’ve been ever since.
Tress: I love that story
Jess: you’ve heard that story a couple of times
Tress: no really I love it. it delights me every time
Jess: what I love about it the most too Michael is that my favorite band then and now and always the Beatles so every time we do Animaniacs I get to pay homage to my favorite band.
Tress: and that’s one of the things that brought Jess and me closer together because we’re both ginormous Beatles fans
Jess: she saw them live like how many times Tress-
Tress: Twice just twice
Jess: I know but that’s two more than I did.
Michael: Just a quick follow-up, Have you had any feedback given what a fan you are?
JESS: no, you know what’s nice I sang on an Oldsmobile commercial that Ringo did vocals on and he walked by me and said peace and love peace and love I also saw George Harrison once he shook my hand and said he loved my trousers.
Tress: he liked your pants
Jess: no McCartney sightings yet but anything is possible.
Question 4
Brett: How are you doing? I wanted to know what’s been different for you guys coming back for the new series, as opposed to the original series?
Tress: I think I have more confidence and a little bit more life experience which always helps any voice actor to bring a little bit more to their role I think I’m easier to get along this time because I’ve been beaten down by so many years. You know we were so grateful to be back together again that I just think it’s a kinder and gentler Animaniacs. We’re happy campers.
Jess: the nice thing Brett is in that we tried to take back in the able hands of Gabe Swarr and Wellesley wild and the team behind this show we tried to bring back everything you love and translate it into today.
Brett: I’d say you definitely achieved that
Jess: thank you, buddy.
Question 5
Jim: Just a hypothetical, have you given any thought to Wakko and Ironhide crossover. Jess, have you given any thought to that?
Jess: well first of all they’re both British which makes no sense because why would a robot be British and it’s from outer space so that doesn’t make any sense. I think that if Wakko and iron hide collided you would have a 40-foot tall eating machine he’d be much more interested in eating them than he would be destroying any Decepticons he would just eat them he would just chew on them.
Tress: Jess, who’s Ironhide?
Jess: Ironhide’s my transformer good guy.
Jess: Ironhide is this sort of low British we must save the world Optimus. He’s that guy. He’s sort of like Wakko’s spirit animal if Wakko was a forty-foot-tall homicidal robot I guess.
Question 6
Tess: What would you guys’ plans be to take over the world?
Rob Paulsen: Oh dear. In pinky’s voice, “Go ahead brain.”
Maurice LaMarche in Brain’s voice: We do a very large press junket you see and then we enthralled the people through the press and then tune into the show where we’ve implanted supplemental messages in each of the thirteen new episodes and by the time they’ve streamed them all, they will be under our control.
Question 7
Michael: In addition to Brain, another one of your long-lived roles that have always been amongst my favorite is Egon from the different versions of Ghostbusters.
Maurice: Thank you I anticipated your question by the way. {references ghostbusters T-shirt}
Question 8
Michael: Psychic on top of everything else. Obviously, the voices of Harold Ramis and Orson Welles were the basis for these characters but at what point does an impersonation sort of taking on a life of its own and become distinct from its inspiration; and for Rob, also going back to the earliest days of Animaniacs, did sort of test drive an assortment of voices for pinky before finding that perfect compliment that perfect foil for the Orson Welles’ brain?
I don’t think Rob knew I was gonna do Orson Welles for Brain that’s the sort of genius of Tom Reuter Andrea Romano of putting those together and going those two would be great together it’s interesting you talk about it starting out as an impression and then taking on a life of its own. I think that happened in both those characters. I started out doing a much more subdued Harold. I realized as we went along, and the directors pushed me in that direction Marsha Goodman on Ghostbusters, Egon was gonna have a little more expression, a little more action in his voice. He started in sort of that Harold [does impression] I collect spores mold and fungus place but as it went on, he had to take a little more off you know it became its own thing.
It became its own thing. With Brain, it started as Welles impression. By episode 3, we were kind of folding in like a soufflé an egg yoke of Vincent Price where there’s a little bit of a high and a little bit of a low for Brain, and in there is where brain lives. I watch footage of Welles now and I realized how much I’ve departed from Welles, and yet I can do Welles I’ve dubbed Welles-actors playing Welles in a couple of things so they do take on a life of its own.
Rob: yes in fact I did. I had six callbacks for Animaniacs. When pinky was ultimately cast I don’t exactly recall Michael what else I was auditioning with but I do know that the guy who already decided up to a certain point to be in the running for pinky wad both our mutual friends John Astin who was not only Sean [Astin]’s father but you know Gomez Addams from the Addams family. John of course is a marvelous actor but it was my deep love and appreciation for British humor that because we’re dealing with cartoon characters and there was no prototype that gives me a ton of room to play so I just tried to throw something in there that was my take on what if pinky had been a Monty python character it was a little bit more sort of stupid you know down here at the beginning brain difficult pain saying the r words and then as it morphed and brain got to be in his grove, and Pinky became a little bit higher and a bit more effusive excited and happy and fun, fun, Silly Willy, Narf! and I only did it to make Tessa laugh.
Question 9
Jim: I always wondered if there was a third mouse added, what would it be like and how would it change the dynamic. Maybe it would be a female mouse added, I don’t know the name I don’t know what we would’ve called it, how do you think it would’ve changed the dynamic if a third character, a third musketeer would be added to the group?
Maurice: Well, you need to go back to the OG series on Hulu available on Hulu and watch the episode Pinky and the Brain and Larry it was Gordon Bressack and Charles Howell’s answer to that question. The brilliance of it was they did add a third mouse to the team because there was talk of spinning pinky and the brain off into their own show and some of the executives at the then WB network said, “Well, we gotta expand the family we can’t just have a half-hour of these two characters trying to take over the world so we gotta add more characters”, so Gordon and Charlie, almost as a protest, wrote that episode where we had a mouse version of Larry fine from the three stooges to pinky and the Brain
Rob: Genius
Maurice: and the genius of Andrea Romano of course they’ve already collaborated that Billy West would play Larry, the mouse Larry, and when you watch the episode you will see how it affects the balance between these two characters. They are a perfectly balanced team and you add anything to it, something doesn’t work.
Rob: and it turns out this year we have a third mouse, Julia.
Maurice: Yes, but she’s on the outside and she’s our adversary so it’s a little bit of a different thing but her portrayal by Maria Bamford is a joy to watch.
Question 10
Brett: I wanted to know, the episode where you guys were stuck together what was it like trying to adopt each other’s mannerisms for that?
Maurice: believe it or not, that was one of the episodes that due to the pandemic we didn’t get to record that one together, setting up our home studios and our schedules were in conflict and we weren’t sure how we could hook each other up so that we could see each other and hear each other with the Zoom not fighting with the real-time recording of the voice so we both had to guess what the other was going to do with the character so we recorded that episode solo
Rob: you know, it’s interesting you brought that up I think you’re the fourth journalist to bring up that particular episode that seemed to like it and that is a testament to the folks who are putting it together because this one we were in totally uncharted territory. We always prefer being together because even if whatever we’re riffing. If we kinda go off script, the scripts are really solid but if we like to improvise and try stuff even if it doesn’t end up on the screen. The energy that happens between these really wonderful actors is just organic. I don’t know how to explain it it just makes everything better. It was definitely a bit of a challenge especially with that episode
Maurice: In the OG series, we didn’t record together if one of us got a cold they actually waited a week to get us in the studio together so it was as you say Rob uncharted territory for us.
Rob: Always played better. It sounds like that episode where we were attached to work. Tessa looks like she liked it.
Now I can’t wait to see it, it’s gonna be the first one I screen. We haven’t seen screeners yet, so you guys know more than we do.
We’d like to thank the cast for their time! Animaniacs Season 2 debuts on Hulu on November 5th! What surprises does Animaniacs season 2 have in store for fans?
