Thirty years ago, Animaniacs was a hit, bringing viewers witty comedy with fun animated characters in the form of Yakko, Wakko, Dot, Pinky, and The Brain. Thirty years later, Steven Spielberg has proven that the show is still as popular as ever, delivering Animaniacs 2020 to an overwhelmingly positive reception.
Another 13-episode season is on the way this year, with more likely to come. We recently spoke with legendary voice actor Rob Paulsen (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mighty Max) in support of the new series, and we learned a lot about his work on the show.
Not only does Paulsen voice Yakko, one of the "Warner Bros." that lives in the water tower, but he also lends his talents to the characters of Pinky and Dr. Scratchansniff from the adventures of Pinky and the Brain. When chatting with Rob, he admits that he pulled very heavily from British humor for those characters, even revealing where he 'ripped off' the voices from.
"I started auditioning for Pinky probably the fourth or fifth time I started going back for Yakko. They said, 'by the way, have a look at Pinky too. What do you get?' And my heroes, among others, were the Pythons, Peter Sellers; a lot of British humor was deeply influential. So one of the takes I threw out was that sort of whack job Cockney vibe with an overbite and a difficulty pronouncing the letter r in Brain. And Steven bought it. And so did Tom.
Dr. Scratchansniff came up, and I think in the second or third episode, they said, 'Hey, we got this guy, who's a psychiatrist, what have you got?' And I mentioned, of course, Peter Sellers; probably my all-time favorite movie is Dr. Strangelove. And so I stole that character that Peter Sellers did. And I just ripped it off. And since Peter was dead, he couldn't do anything about it anyway. (Laughs)"
What do you guys think of Paulsen's comments? You can currently binge Animaniacs 2020 on Hulu, and another 13-episode season is set to launch on the streaming platform this year.
You can hear what Paulsen has to say for yourself in our full chat with him below. He uses the voices of Rick and Morty's Snowball, Jimmy Neutron's Carl Wheezer, TMNT's Raphael & Donatello, Lilo & Stitch's Reuben/Experiment 625, Goof Troop & A Goofy Movie's PJ, A Land Before Time's Spike, and of course, Animaniacs' Yakko and Pinky from Pinky & The Brain.