in 2022
Development Following the success of
Tiny Toon Adventures,
Steven Spielberg offered series creator
Tom Ruegger a chance to develop another television series. While walking around the studio lot and seeing the
Warner Bros. Water Tower,
Writing Animaniacs was written for an audience of all ages, emphasizing aspects for comedic purposes. Some ideas were based on the writers' lives. Cultural references were added to target a slightly older audience. Several jokes were improvised in recording sessions.
Voice actors Animaniacs features the voices of
Rob Paulsen as Yakko and
Pinky,
Jess Harnell as Wakko,
Tress MacNeille as Dot, and
Maurice LaMarche as the
Brain. Paulsen also voiced
Dr. Otto Scratchansniff. Ranking as the "best stuff he has ever done", Paulsen recorded his lines for four hours per episode. During the last week of auditions, Harnell was invited to audition for the series, imitating
impressions while Ruegger shouted each celebrity through an almanac. While auditioning for various characters, LaMarche thought the Brain resembled
Orson Welles, doing an impression of "two-thirds Welles [and] one-third
Vincent Price". Rita's voice was provided by
Bernadette Peters. Ruegger and other artists drew the Warner siblings similar to the animated characters from the time period,
StarToons in
Chicago (with ink and paint services provided by an animation studio in
Seoul),
Wang Film Productions in Taiwan, The show used 10,000 more drawings than other animated television series.
Music Spielberg originated the idea to compose an original score for every episode. The series's main composer is
Richard Stone. Having previously worked on
Tiny Toon Adventures, Stone approached his scoring by incorporating techniques similar to
Carl W. Stalling's work and scoring several parodies of
Broadway musicals. He also composed the theme song. Other composers were contracted to write original underscores, including Steve and Julie Bernstein. Using a 29- to 32-player orchestra, the orchestra used a
French horn for
opera parodies, a
harp for
Christmas specials, and a specific instrument for individual segments. In some sessions, the music score for individual segments or a full episode is finished for a maximum of 22 minutes per day. Other sessions combine the cues of the series with cues from
Pinky and the Brain and
Freakazoid!. Between 45 and 50 ending gags were individually scored for two hours in one day; each one lasted one to thirteen seconds. At Spielberg's suggestion, each segment has a specific style of music. The music score of the Warner siblings' segments was inspired by early Warner Bros. cartoons and
Tiny Toon Adventures. The music score of "The Goodfeathers" segments was composed in the style of
Martin Scorsese's films and
The Godfather. Stone played the
mandolin in the first segments of "The Goodfeathers". Ruegger incorporated
Antonín Dvořák's
Humoresques for the theme song of the segments featuring Slappy Squirrel. For several months, Ruegger battled with censors to air the song "Lake Titicaca". == Broadcast history ==