Animaniacs season 2 premiere recap: Rome Sweet Rome

Hulu’s Animaniacs season 2 has premiered, which means Yakko (Rob Paulsen), Wakko (Jess Harnell), and Dot (Tress MacNeille) are at it again. This time, the troublesome trio is in Emperor Nero’s (Fred Tatasciore) ancient Rome selling touristy items like “t-togas” and Pompeii snow globes. However, a nerdy troll (Danny Jacobs) snobbishly interjects that Mt. Vesuvius doesn’t erupt until 11 years from that time period. Brushing off his critique, “Aniamiacs” more thoroughly introduces Nero. After Nero mentions increasing taxes to build a wall, it becomes fairly obvious that he’s a parody of ex-President Donald Trump.

Ralph, the security guard, makes a few appearances as Ralphus (Frank Welker), tasked with doing Nero’s dirty work, as Nero makes grand proclamations about himself and how great he has made Rome. All criticisms are dismissed as “fraudulent heralding media,” which is another obvious jab at you-know-who. However, as another moment of self-criticism, the nerd troll notes how, rather than Nero being able to fiddle as Rome burned, he would most likely be playing the lyre (the fiddle wouldn’t be invented for 800 years). More crucial to the plot: Nero becomes mad at the Animaniacs for not paying taxes (emphasizing that they must pay taxes unless they are among the super-rich).

Animaniacs season 2: “I Am the Very Model of an Ancient Roman Emperor”

Obviously, a key component of Animaniacs is its musical numbers, and “I Am the Very Model of an Ancient Roman Emperor” is very reminiscent of their classic tunes (in a good way). After Nero delivers various verses of self-praises, the Warners have to join in to dismiss the Emperor as a narcissistic, embezzling, golf fanatic obsessed with tweets. (Dot does ask if they’re really talking about Nero at that point.) For some obvious reasons, Nero does not like what they have to say, so he wants to punish them, ancient Roman-style. Fortunately, the Warners know how to handle such situations — and do so with ease.

As they run the gauntlet of Nero’s wrath, Dot distracts man-eating tigers with a laser pointer. Then, during a parody of Conan the Barbarian, Yakko Warner puts a stop to the unlicensed parody. Next, wrestler John Cena and everything else attacking them get eaten by Wakko Warner. Dot then gets the town Crier attacked by using the laser pointer on him, directing the tigers on him, and they sure do pounce. Finally, after Nero plays a rigged game by offering them cheap wooden swords in a sword fight, Yakko sends Nero flying all the way to “exile island” with a vicious golf swing.

Animaniacs season 2: Backwards Pinky

Next on Animaniacs, we learn that evil-yet-lovable mouse Brain (Maurice LaMarche) stole a lab worker’s diamond engagement ring for a new scheme. However, as one might expect, Pinky (Paulsen) is too busy getting distracted by “Backwards Gary” videos on the internet. In his own grand designs, Brain plans to use diamonds for teleportation, and we get esoteric details about stealing the Hope diamond from the Smithsonian. However, as an intriguing twist, Brain gets teleported into the back of Pinky’s head!

Now, rather than his original plan (such as it was), Brain wants to use the Hope diamond to put his teleporter to work on separating their bodies. Arriving at the Smithsonian exhibit, Brain uses Pinky’s large head to break through glass and get the diamond, engaging in some cute hijinks along the way (falling down the full body length of a giant dinosaur skeleton, Pinky eating a disgusting trash hotdog, etc.). Being attached to Pinky, Brain is getting dumber as time goes on, but they ultimately get the diamond from a security guard for $40, and Brain uses a neon sign, tungsten from a watch, and different object to reflect a beam until it works to separate the two — at least physically.

Animaniacs season 2: Wakko’s Short Shorts: Now Loading

Wakko returns to close out this Animaniacs episode with a fun little parody about how it can take excruciatingly long for some video games to load. The terms and conditions are also extreme, including selling one’s firstborn child into perpetuity. Wakko has an extremely long beard by the time the game loads, then decides a game called “Pug Archer” is more interesting anyway. Interestingly, one cannot accuse Wakko of having the shortest of attention spans, as he certainly waited long enough before changing his mind.

What are your thoughts on this Animaniacs episode? Let us know in the comments!