As if 2020 wasn’t brimming with enough chaotic energy, theAnimaniacshave returned. The original series, which debuted in 1993 as part of an effort to challenge the Disney Afternoon animated programming block, has returned, along with executive producerSteven Spielbergand voice actors likeRob Paulsen,Jess HarnellandTress MacNeille. This newAnimaniacsis, much like the original series, totally irreverent and off-the-wall, critiquing both popular culture and modern politics in a way that is playful and savage.
And much of the sensibilities of the new series have been shaped by executive producersWellesley Wild, a key collaborator ofSeth MacFarlaneon everything fromFamily GuytoA Million Ways to Die in the West, andGabe Swarr, an animation veteran who has worked on everything fromDexter’s Laboratoryto a television spin-off of DreamWorks Animation’sKung-Fu Panda. We got to chat with Wild and Swarr about making the show more political this time out, figuring out who the audience is for the new series, and how close they came to havingFreakazoid(another beloved Spielberg animated relic) show up in the series.
This version ofAnimaniacshas some edge to it. I was wondering, was that always part of the initial pitch when you were brought on?
WELLESLEY WILD: Yeah, I mean, I think that… Do you think that there’s more edge than the original? Is that what you’re saying?
Maybe it’s just me not remembering something from 20 years ago, but it seemed to have more of a political edge. There’s a gun control episode, a Putin episode, stuff like that.
WILD: Well, I mean, we write to the cultural realities we’re given and I think ideologically, things have changed a lot in 22 years and I think maybe we go a little harder. For example, there is a segment where we go after Christopher Columbus. And like you’re saying, what’s the political perspective on Christopher Columbus now versus 22 years ago? Well, there were a lot more schools and statutes 22 years ago. So we’re writing to the reality of the world.
And was Spielberg totally onboard with this angle?
GABE SWARR: Oh, he encouraged it. He definitely encouraged it.
WILD: At the beginning, he was like, “I want to be so political. I want to be on…” He wanted clips of… He’s like, “I envision posts”–
SWARR: Huffington Post.
WILD: 3: Yeah. “I want articles in the Huffington Post about how political the show is.”
SWARR: And then Warner Brothers was like, “We’re making a kid’s show.” So, we were stuck right in the middle between those two things.
There is that moment in the first episode where you address who is the audience for this newAnimaniacsreboot, and I’m sure that was a question you guys were talking about and asking yourselves. Where did you land in that discussion?
WILD: I think we just wanted to follow the makeup of the audience of the original, and hoping for that magicJurassic Worldphenomenon, where the parents of the kids now came of age since the originalJurassic Park, and now they have kids. We’re hoping that the same thing happens withAnimaniacs, but I think the stories would appeal to everyone and the humor works on adult and the kid level, the way the original episodes did. And more specifically, I think the kids enjoy the slapstick and bucking authority, and the adults, which, I think, made up maybe 25 percent or something of the original audience, they’ll hopefully gravitate towards the more sophisticated send-ups like you were just referring to from the cultural canon, which they did in the original as well.
Well, I wanted to know, did you ever come up against any standards and practices issues for pushing things a little too far?
WILD: Yeah. Yes, we did. So know that we pushed as far as we were able.
SWARR: We quickly found what was off limits.
WILD: Yes, we did. Yes, we did. And we’d love to talk about it, but we’ll get in trouble.
The newDuckTaleshas done this great job of incorporating other Disney Afternoon characters. Was there ever any thought on your behalf of bringing inFreakazoidorHisteriacharacters?
WILD: Yes. Yes, there were. I don’t want to spoil anything, but yeah, we didn’t want to rely too heavily on like, “Hey, let’s have Bugs show up,” or whatever. Let’s make our own show. But Gabe, you’re a little more familiar with theFreakazoidsituation.
SWARR: Yeah, I think it just didn’t work out. We tried to get the original actor and just schedule-wise, it just didn’t work out. We would have loved to. We were just moving.
WILD: Yeah, that’s right. It just didn’t come together in time because the turnover is so fast.
