Randy Beaman's pal

November 14, 2009 4:07 PM

One time, OK, see, one time Randy Beaman's [aunt, uncle, sister, little brother, best friend who's name is Linda, cat] [had like this bean dip for the chips, had a dream she ate a big marshmallow, ate some cornflakes, had to take baths with his brother] and [Jason made this gross noise, this was in Kansas, he thought it wasn't Dracula] and [they were in there so long they became skeleton people]. [AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH] (clips from Animaniacs, big youtube playlist of them all here.)
posted by The Devil Tesla (26 comments total)

I see it's a rainy weekend in Wisconsin as well.

also, this is great. I had totally forgotten about these little segments


SKELETON PEOPLE
posted by The Whelk at 4:23 PM on November 14, 2009

Huh. Was just thinking about these the other day. Pls stp rdng my mnd, kthxbye
posted by nonliteral at 4:25 PM on November 14, 2009

Still my favorite one - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_JqqfI1Bjk
posted by nonliteral at 4:28 PM on November 14, 2009

Thank you so much for this. I have many fond memories of Animaniacs... it was the first cartoon that I really made a point to watch despite being far too old for it.

I'd really like to hear what other cartoons MeFanimaniacs find to have that same sophisticated type of humor yet target children that squarely. Something like Invader Zim perhaps?
posted by butterstick at 5:45 PM on November 14, 2009

I mean... Randy Beaman's Bath? Cornflakes? Those are hilarious in such a puerile way, but still get a laugh out of me even today.
posted by butterstick at 5:52 PM on November 14, 2009

It's that time again.

Time to make the Fox censors cry?
posted by The Shiny Thing at 6:02 PM on November 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

I fear I have may have wandered off into Good Idea, Bad Idea territory.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 6:07 PM on November 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

These were just about my favorite segments.

Although, why did those WB cartoons of the '90s have to have soundtracks that provided complete orchestration for every single movement of a character? Really distracting with Randy Beaman's friend, now that I'm older.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:45 PM on November 14, 2009

Although, why did those WB cartoons of the '90s have to have soundtracks that provided complete orchestration for every single movement of a character?

I believe they did that because that is awesome.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 7:00 PM on November 14, 2009 [9 favorites]

Man. I'd forgotten about these. Thanks. These are awesome.
posted by eyeballkid at 8:06 PM on November 14, 2009

'kay, 'bye.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:16 PM on November 14, 2009

Are you pondering what I'm pondering?

I think so Brain, but how will we get the Spice Girls into the Paella?
posted by wabbittwax at 8:44 PM on November 14, 2009

So, last summer I worked in an archive, making a finding aid for a folklore collection. Processing contemporary legends was almost EXACTLY like watching that playlist, over and over again.
posted by eritain at 9:25 PM on November 14, 2009

okay, so this one time, this one time? i was clicking on the links? the links in a metafilter FPP? and the aunt and sister ones? they were the same. and then some guy licked my feet and I thought it was the dog but it wasn't the dog, it was just some guy who liked to do that a lot.
and now i'm squicked out from here until sunday (which is only 22 minutes away?) and I thought you should know.

okay thanks bye.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 9:39 PM on November 14, 2009

and the aunt and sister ones? they were the same. and then some guy licked my feet and I thought it was the dog but it wasn't the dog, it was just some guy who liked to do that a lot.

Oh damn, that sister link was supposed to be this.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 10:47 PM on November 14, 2009

What a great post, Devil Tesla. I loves me some Animaniacs, and you did all the work for me! :)
posted by Malor at 1:28 AM on November 15, 2009

I loved the animaniacs so very much.
posted by dejah420 at 8:13 AM on November 15, 2009

showing my age & total ignorance of popular culture filter: i don't know nuthin' 'bout no animaniacs. but that is one great post!
posted by msconduct at 1:08 PM on November 15, 2009

I'm with msconduct, never knew about these before but love 'em, esp. the Dracula and Lee Press On Nails ones . . .
posted by bearwife at 3:26 PM on November 15, 2009

I recently finished a huge video ripping project, wherein I took all my Animaniacs DVD sets (3 of them), all my Pinky And The Brain DVD sets (3 of them) and all my Freakazoid! DVD sets (2 of them) and ripped all the individual segments as high-quality video files, separated all the little in-between segments into their own files, and have them in a single directory where I can load them into a playlist and hit "shuffle".

It's like having my own cartoon channel which plays the absolute best Warner animation to come out in the past decade or two.

I *heart* technology!!!

It's about 44GB of data, and has about 450 items in it. Now, when is WB going to release the final 24 episodes of Animaniacs on DVD??? C'mon, already!!!
posted by hippybear at 4:06 PM on November 15, 2009 [2 favorites]

Honestly, I think Animaniacs at its best stands toe-to-toe with Bugs and Daffy. Their sendup of Apocalypse Now was ridiculously good, and of course all the Pinky and the Brain shorts were great stuff.

But, overall, they were much spottier than Bugs-era WB. A lot of their work was pretty meh. I particularly disliked the Rita and Runt cartoons. Blech. I like my cartoons funny, and Rita and Runt made the cardinal sin of taking themselves ever so seriously, seven minutes at a time.

It is, however, SO worth tolerating the relatively poor work to get to the gems. There were many to be found.
posted by Malor at 4:42 PM on November 15, 2009

But, overall, they were much spottier than Bugs-era WB. A lot of their work was pretty meh.

I wonder, how much of this sentiment is because we only have the actual gems of the Bugs-era WB animation in common circulation today, many decades after its initial release. I suspect that the ones which ran again and again on television during the various Saturday morning incarnations of the Bugs Bunny / Roadrunner Show are really only the ones which were hits, and there are quite a few misses which are left out of view. After all, Warner has yet to actually release a complete "Bugs And Friends In Chronological Order" DVD collection.

And I would purchase that, actually.

How can you hate Rita and Runt? Bernadette Peters as a singing cartoon cat? I mean, BERNADETTE PETERS!!!!!
posted by hippybear at 5:20 PM on November 15, 2009

That's a good point, and the Bugs era lasted for a long, long time. Wikipedia says that Bugs was in 161 cartoons all by himself, and that's not even counting the other characters. Animaniacs was only produced for about three years. At their best, they were hysterically funny, and I wish they'd done better in the ratings... given a few more years of production, they might have ended up as powerful a force in syndication as Bugs.

And, I guess I'm an uncultured cretin, but I found the whole premise of Rita and Runt to be hopelessly boring and un-fun. I didn't know who was singing the part, and it wouldn't have mattered even if I did.... it was still boring and un-fun. And they had them in every freaking episode, it seemed like. I liked neither the music nor the stories, and would always cringe and find something else to do when they came on.

I mean, how many freaking times can you sing about not finding a home? Sheesh.
posted by Malor at 11:06 PM on November 15, 2009

FWIW, there were 12 Rita & Runt episodes. Of those, the absolute BEST one of all HAS to be Les Miseranimals. I'm sure it's really only funny if you know the musical... but it's a note-perfect pastiche.

And also, FWIW, I find most Porky Pig cartoons nearly unbearable.
posted by hippybear at 3:11 PM on November 16, 2009

I must have just been unlucky then, because it felt like every bleeding time I watched Animaniacs, there was a Rita and Runt.
posted by Malor at 6:25 AM on November 17, 2009

K bye.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 12:28 AM on December 9, 2009