We are writers, we are revivalists, we are puppies.
Chapter One: Cancellation and Revival
Disclaimer: Let's get this over with. Animaniacs, Tiny Toons Adventures, Freakazoid, and Pinky and the Brain belong to Amblin Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation. Paranoid Puppies, Inc. has not bought either one of those companies, yet. TimeWarner and Turner Broadcasting System are trademarks of those companies. If this seems too similar to moonwalker1822's Animaniacs!, I came up with it first! Fine, but the idea of recreating the series isn't exactly original, and I can name at least three other stories who did so, although none of them ever got past the first chapter.
Summary: It's 2011, 13 years after the cancellation of Animaniacs. In those 13 years, the animation industry has become an empty shell of what it used to be. Animation turns from an art form to a cheap trick. Exactly 13 years later, we bring Animaniacs back. We are revivalists, we are animators, we are puppies. Paranoid Puppies Present: Animaniacs 2011.
Time-line
September 14, 1990: The first Spielberg cartoon, Tiny Toons Adventures is aired on Fox Kids.
September 13, 1993: The first episode of Animaniacs is aired on Fox Kids.
September 9, 1995: Pinky and the Brain is spun off from Animaniacs.
November 14, 1998: Jamie Kellner cancels Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain, and Warner Bros. Animation, Inc. nearly goes bankrupt.
November 13, 1998
Since the TimeWarner purchase of the Turner Broadcasting System in 1998, Thaddeus Plotz, CEO of Warner Bros., was replaced with the CEO of Turner, Jamie Kellner. At the same time, moral guardians started thinking that 90's cartoons weren't appropriate for children.
Yes, it took them 8 years to come to that conclusion. I think they're idiots too.
Jamie Kellner, well, he didn't have a Napoleon Complex like Mr. Plotz, but he had different plans for the company. One of said plans was falling under the pressure of the increasingly getting stronger group of moral guardians. In the process, he canceled the Spielberg cartoon, Freakazoid!. That left Animaniacs, the main Spielberg cartoon, and Pinky and the Brain.
On the night of November 13, 1998, the remaining Amblin characters were called to a meeting in the meeting room of the main building of Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank.
"I have called you all here," started Kellner, "to announce that Animaniacs has been canceled. For the last skit, we have put together some clips from some of your other skits. The last episode airs tomorrow, November 14, 1998."
Animation died the year afterward.
November 14, 2011:
13 Years Later
In was a dark and stormy night in Burbank, and I only say that because I really don't know how to start this story, even if it wasn't. Not at all. It wasn't even night. In the Warner Bros. animation studio executive office, a group of executives in black suits, and Abraham Lincoln in a black suit, were gathered around a table. John Wilkes Booth jumped from under the table and chased Abe out of his chair and through an already broken window. The window was immediately replaced by a giant teddy bear by two men in black suits.
"Let's stop with this stupid nonsense and continue along with the story, NOW!" exclaimed the head chairman, the CEO, a Jewish man wearing a business suit, Barry Meyer. "Now let's get started, shall we?"
Fine, be that way, comedy-less CEO.
The other executives nodded their heads.
"Good, now," Barry said, "as you can see from this graph," he pulled out a line graph with the squiggly line starting from the top left-hand corner and ending in a toilet in the bottom right-hand corner, "our family cartoons aren't as popular as they used to be."
"Why do we care? It's not like it is important as the rest of the company," said one of the executives. As soon as he said this, a trapdoor fell under his chair and all we could hear is screaming, and screaming, and a splash. "I'm okay!"
"To answer your question, kid, it's just that children are more easily fooled into watching cartoons than adults, but adults are also important because they are not restricted by the amount of television they can watch by their parents, most of the time.
"What we need is a show that will attract both kids and adults. Those types of shows are always the most popular. Mature enough that it will attract grown-up, understandable enough so that it attracts kids, and popular enough that it will be popular even after a decade and a half. I don't care whether it's an old idea, just do it!" said Meyer, he started walking around the table, "The reason cartoons died back in the 2000's was half moral guardians, and half advertisers wanting just one demographic to advertise their products to. I knew we shouldn't have refused when Dan offered us that show, stupid Disney for picking it up instead," he sighed, "Now I realize, we should've done half adult ads, and half kiddie ads! The adult ads may seem too extreme for kids, but who watches those thing with Netflix and iTunes and DVR's? Old cartoons are good, it worked for Beavis and Butthead!" He sat back down.
One of the other executives, the only one wearing casual clothing, stood up and said, "So that's why you have a lightning bolt in your loo? I think I know what will keep that bolt from electrocuting the sewer rats."
"Any ideas are welcome."
One of the executives stood up and said, "I have an idea, how about-" but we never heard what he said because the teddy bear's stomach started to rumble, then Teddy Roosevelt jumped out of it. Adolf Hitler jumped out from under the table and started chasing him, "Come bak her yer stoopid American! I vil gecth yer agan! Aye hate yer and yer yunger cusin!"
"He's my fifth cousin, and my niece's husband!"
They both jumped through the window. Now five people have jumped out that specific window hole, including the teddy bear. Right after they jumped, caricatures of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, or, for copyright purposes, Sean Jebs and Bill Grates, you know what, never mind, also came from under the table. "Aren't you supposed to be dead?" asked Bill Grates.
"This is a cartoon, anything is possible. I can live, dogs can write fanfictions, my company can run itself-" Bill and Sean stared as something started shaking in his front shirt pocket. A brown squirrel jumped out of his pocket and onto the table with an iPhone-like object in his paws. "Hey, that's a top-secret prototype of the qPhone 17R! Give that back or I will use my mind powers on you!"
"And I thought I plan ahead. qPhone 17R? You're still on the qPhone 4F!" said Grates.
"Why do you think out devices go obsolete so fast?"
"Because you're horrible at planning?"
"Not true, that phone has a 126 megapixel camera. By the time we release it, most cameras will have 130 megapixels."
"Sorry," yelled the squirrel as he ran towards the window, "I need this for a certain pink squirrel!" he got to the window and yelled towards the lot, "Hey Aunt Slappy, I have the phone! Oh, and by the way, I think Warner Bros. is renewing An-"
"Just get down here Skippy! I have the car warmed up and the dynamite and C4 ready to be lit."
"You have C4?" he climbed out of the window and landed on a mattress where Hitler and Teddy were still fighting over the teddy bear. Abe and Booth were fighting over a clump of C4.
Back in the office, the executive who was speaking concluded with, "-and those are the facts. Now, whoever disagrees with me speak your mind or forever hold your peace."
"Am I the only one who noticed Hitler and the squirrel and-" said one of the execs.
"Get used to it, this kind of thing always happens in Burbank," replied the other exec.
"But-"
"I don't think it's a good idea," interrupted another executive, "What if we're not able to get Spielberg back? Our contract with Amblin Entertainment expired years ago, and focus group tests have shown that placing the Looney Tunes into different genres gain better ratings."
"And we all know where that went. Loonatics Unleashed, Baby Looney Tunes, only Duck Dodgers went anywhere. I thought Loonatics was a parody of hero cartoons, not a poorly-researched copy of Anime. Besides, I hate anime. I thought the point of these cartoons was to ignore focus groups. You at least did the younger versions of classic characters right, although Spielberg did it so it was entertaining."
"Spielberg was also the only one who could keep...gulp, them... from going out of control. He was like Kermit the Frog on The Muppets Show."
"Shh, the Muppets, unfortunately, belong to Disney. As for the Spielberg issue, I have that handled. I also have the Ruegger and Richard Stone issue settled."
"But Richard Stone is dead-"
"Anyhow, I think that wraps it up for questions. So-"
"I have just one more question," replied Barry Meyer, "Shouldn't we tell the audience what is going on?"
"I have that handled, but first," the executive grabbed a zipper handle that was under his head of hair, and zipped down his Warner Executive costume. His hair was a lot shorter , and poking through the zipper was a snout. The execs looked at him in awe.
"You're Lucky?"
"This should shed some light on the subject," he smiled at the camera. He grabbed a retro-style projector and a newsreel from behind his back.
A/N: Constructive Criticism accepted, Flames are not. The difference, CC's are reviews that give thoughts on how to improve on a story. Flames do not give any ways to improve and are made to simply hurt feelings.
August 11, 2008: Lucky C.P. Acros, future CEO of Paranoid Puppies, Inc., is born.
April 28, 2009: Paranoid Puppies Inc., parent company of almost every other company in the world, is founded by Lucky Acros.
October 13, 2011:A division of Paranoid Puppies Studios (a subsidiary of Paranoid Puppies Inc.), The Paranoid Puppies FanFiction Department (PPFFD) is formed.
November 14, 2011: 13 years after the cancellation of Animaniacs, a meeting is called to discuss the poor state of WB animation at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank. The result of that meeting? Animaniacs is brought back.
Same Day: PPFFD starts production on Paranoid Puppies and Steven Spielberg Present: Animaniacs 2011.