It Was Twenty Years Ago Today: The Premier of "Pinky & the Brain"
That's "Pinky & the Brain" the primetime series, which premiered at 7pm on Sunday night, September 10, 1995 on The WB. After their success on "Animaniacs," the two lab mice broke into primetime with their own show. The title of the first episode: "Das Mouse," written by
Peter Hastings, directed by Liz Holzman and Al Zegler, produced by
Peter, Rusty Mills, me and Mr. Spielberg, and starring the vocal performances of Rob Paulsen as Pinky and Maurice LaMarche as the Brain.
And, now it's 20 years later, and since the world is not yet in the Brain's control, we must assume that Pinky & the Brain have spent the last 7305 nights attempting to take over the world -- without success.
But there's always tomorrow night.
"Why, what are we going to do tomorrow night, Brain?"
"The same thing we do every night, Pinky -- try to take over the world."
"They're dinky, they're Pinky & the Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain."
"Narf" forever!
So, Tom, are you pondering what I'm pondering?
ReplyDeleteI think so, Donald, but after 20 years, you'd think they could take a night off.
ReplyDeleteI hope that somebody will soon take over the WB Studios to produce another timeless, helluva cartoon about two genetically modified mice bent on world domination. Schpiel-borg 2015, maybe?
ReplyDeleteAlways enjoyed this show a LOT. I remember it being one of my mum's favourites too. Can't believe it's been 20 years!
ReplyDeleteI had a mini-marathon last night in celebration after reading about this momentous milestone online. I second Dexter when I say I can't believe that it's been so long, but I'm not surprised that the show's still just as funny as it was way back when I was seven. Happy anniversary!
ReplyDeleteNo doubts they are still at it...
ReplyDeletePINKY: Gee, Brain, whaddya want to do tonight?
BRAIN: The same thing we do every night, Pinky — try to take over the world!
PINKY: But, Brain! Didn't we try to do that last night?
BRAIN: And the seven thousand, three hundred and four nights before that, yes.
PINKY: [Looking at his fingers] Egad, Brain, that's even more than eight!
BRAIN: A little.
PINKY: Don't you think we could take the night off?
BRAIN: It is indolent and negligent attitudes like that which have made the world what it is today — the very reason why I must take responsibility and assume control of the globe.
PINKY: Ooh, you know what they say about assuming, Brain! It makes an ass out of me!
BRAIN: [sighing] Very well, Pinky. What do you want to do tonight?
PINKY: Well... we could— oh, wait, no, there's still a bug stuck in there from last time. How about I pull a— ah, that trick never works. Let's see, we could... could... er... Uh, what was the question again?
BRAIN: You don't need a night off, Pinky. Your mind is on perpetual vacation.
PINKY: Brain, I've got it — we could watch TV!
BRAIN: The perfect pastime for a vacant mind. But the television is stuck on the shopping channel, and there's no control because you accidentally dropped it down the toilet.
PINKY: [indignantly] That was no accident!
BRAIN: Also, the volume is turned all the way down.
PINKY: No problem, Brain, we can watch the closed captions!
BRAIN: Pinky, the captioning is inaccurate, off-time, and not even correctly spelled. The last time I saw it, someone had typed "pay-for-play contract". [shaking his head wearily] You don't know what I'm up against....
PINKY: Poit! What do the poor deaf people do? If I ruled the world, I'd make them do proper captions! Brain! Are you pondering what I'm pondering?
BRAIN: If ever I do, remind me to shoot myself.
PINKY: We could take over the world! And then fix everything that's wrong!
BRAIN: Brilliant, Pinky. And just how do you propose to do that?
PINKY: Oh, well, I'm a big-picture sort of visionary. You're better at the details, Brain.
BRAIN: YeS, always. Very well. I shall formulate a plan...
PINKY: Oh, goody, a plan! Er... but, why, Brain? What are we going to do tonight?
BRAIN: This is where I came in...
—David "Their wrinkly, there Pink-eye and the brains, brains, brains!" Green
I believe it premiered on Fox right before the Simpsons. It didn't go to the WB until later.
ReplyDeleteAnimaniacs premiered on Fox and moved to the WB...Pinky & the Brain, the series, premiered on the WB on Sunday night at 7 pm in 1995
ReplyDeleteI still maintain that a revival of this and Animaniacs would work on something like Cartoon Network. You have the people who watched it as kids with their own kids now; there is definitely an audience out there.
ReplyDeleteOn a sidenote, I have read the general dislike of "Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain", but I thought it was brilliant. It was different than the regular Pinky and the Brain for sure, but it was also somewhat similar. And the new situations led to some interesting and funny moments. When I watched them on DVD, I was sad there were only 13 episodes.
Hi, Tom, I wrote those weird fake Freakazoid comic book solicitations a while ago as Rafa Rivas (my fake name for blogging).
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I'm being to naive, missing something, or just wishful as a fan of your work, but I think the shows you produced in the 90s with WB have a huge opportunity to make a great comeback in an unexpected form: Youtube videos.
Just the other day, I answered my little nephew's questions about the universe by taking my phone out showing him Yakko's universe song in youtube, and he kept watching clips of the show the rest of the night.
My sister and I talked about how Animaniacs and those shows are still fun, instructive and appealing to kids of this generation, while millennials are crazy about comebacks. So, it just occurred me to check the views of those videos, and it's crazy, Yakko's "Nations of the World" song has about 16 million views distributed among various random users. I don't think even Zack Galafaniakis has achieved that much. Only the most youtubers get that kind of numbers, and many make a good living with just a small fraction of that every month.
That success makes a lot of sense: like SNL or Monty Python, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, Freakazoid (one of the forefathers of meme culture), and Histeria, all have very memorable moments in short skits of perfect duration for a youtube video. So, it might be a good idea to pool them all in an official channel.
I think advertisers would be very interested, it would keep the properties hot, help selling the DVDs, and might even lead to some revivals.