Why was one of the main segments of Animaniacs just a parody of old mafia movies? Would kids at the time even understand the references or find them funny?
Why was one of the main segments of Animaniacs just a parody of old mafia movies...
Aaron Young
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Adam Cox
Cartoons weren't just for kids back then.
Henry Nguyen
My dad watched the GodFather when he was 6, and wanted to be Vito Corleone when he grew up
Kayden Miller
>just a parody of old mafia movies
Forgetting when they were parodying movies like Rocky, West Side Story, The Birds, Fiddler on the Roof, etc.
Henry Cooper
Animaniacs came out three years after Goodfellas
Luke Reyes
Animaniacs was never about what kids find funny, it was all about what the creators wanted to put in, as long as the executives found it funny enough to approve. Cartoons are made for the creators at least as much as they’re made for the child audience. Kinda like how modern cartoons are full of queers. It’s not because children actually want to watch gay people, but because the creators are queer and want to increase queer representation.
The only times what a kid finds funny over what an adult would find funny is considered while making a cartoon is when the show is trying to sell something and so the executives desperately try to estimate what a kid will like (and usually they’re pretty far off the mark anyway). OR when a creator is trying to force a very specific fetish or agenda into their child programming, and they use “but kids find this stuff funny!” as an excuse, like with Dan the Child Rider Schneider’s foot obsession.
Luke Hill
>Goodfellas (stylized GoodFellas) is a 1990 American biographical crime film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Nicholas Pileggi and Scorsese, and produced by Irwin Winkler
>Animaniacs is an animated comedy musical television series created by Tom Ruegger for Fox Broadcasting Company's Fox Kids block in 1993
>1990
>1993
Easton Clark
>old mafia movies
Godfather was only like 20 at the time, and Goodfellas was brand new. Would kids watching Looney Tunes in 1944 understand Edward G Robinson? Anyway as a 10 year old I found this segment funny. Even if you don't understand everything it helps you learn about the world around you.
Logan Gonzalez
wtf
Anthony Lee
Tom Ruegger was honestly surprised kids would rather watch Pokémon than watch some birds talk about Martin Scorsese.
Daniel Gomez
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Yeah I think the block itself would have been fucking dead had Pokemon not saved it
Ryder Butler
This is one of my favorite Any Forumspypastas.
Ryder James
I didn't like the segments much as a kid but now that I'm older I do. And it's not that I have some new insight on Mafia movies or anything, I just like the characters and how they play off each other. Something about Squit's big goofy smile just makes me chuckle.
Parker Ortiz
Kids didn't get it back then either, we just watched them anyways because they were cartoons
Joshua Bell
As a kid I didn't get a lot of what they were parodying but I still enjoyed the segments, they wrote jokes that didn't require you to understand what they were referencing. It had a really tight dynamic and I still got the gist that it was built around an old mafia aesthetic. It was actually one of my favorite segments on the show, right up there with the Warners, Pinky and the Brain, and Slappy Squirrel.
Christopher Torres
Even as a kid I just thought the gag of Pesto going off on Squit over and over again got old
Jose Miller
Most stuff that's only meant to be funny because you recognize the thing it parodies/references isn't very funny in the first place.
Gabriel Hughes
wasn't old at the tame stupid
Oliver Hughes
Most of the things referenced were going to dance right by kids' recognition. I mean, they did a whole short spoofing Orson Welles' 1970s ad-recording meltdown just because Brain's VA often used it as a warmup.
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John Myers
I didn't understand it at the time but still thought it was funny, because kids are fucking stupid and will laugh at absolutely anything.
Chase Rivera
Barring a slight edit to Welles' offer to give a blowjob.
Easton Price
>they talk funny, yell at each other, and are also cartoon birds
It stands on its own for children who don't really need much to find something funny. Just look at what passes for modern cartoon humor.
Henry Cox
Kinda this. Pigeons in Animaniacs (as well as some other segments) weren't really funny to me when I was a kid but that doesn't mean they weren't amusing. It was always interesting to follow the plot and admire the animation, even if some parts of the show weren't laughing out loud material. It was variety... there were parts to laugh at and others to just watch in silence. Honestly I miss that. Modern cartoons are either endlessly edgy or they try (and fail) at being a comedy and their idea of comedy is internet memes refferences and display of bad writing every 30 seconds.