Name: Hulu’s Animaniacs reboot can’t survive a BoJack Horseman world
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Hulu’s Animaniacs reboot can’t survive a BoJack Horseman world

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The Verge logo. Watching the original Animaniacs today is probably the closest you can get to scrolling through a TikTok feed from the mid-’90s. The madcap variety show was like Looney Tunes by way of golden-age Saturday Night Live, a pre-social media era meme factory that seemed more interested in parodying show business and celebrity than actually entertaining children. (The first episode is about a dang psychiatrist to the stars!) Funny thing is, kids loved the antics of the Warner brothers and sister as they guffawed and rampaged their way across studio lots. Adults, on the other hand, were laughing at the jokes actually taking place on said studio lots — jokes full of innuendo and references meant for avid consumers of celeb gossip, alongside deep-cut jokes about animation history. It was uncommonly clever, and bewildering in hindsight.&nbsp;The new Animaniacs, rebooted and now streaming on Hulu, replicates the manic energy of the original but not really in the service of anything that feels as transgressive or groundbreaking. The premise is simple: after the show’s cancellation in 1998, the Warner siblings Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, have spent the intervening years roaming some forgotten land until cartoon Steven Spielberg — in a Jurassic Park pastiche alongside cartoon Laura Dern, Sam Neill, and Jeff Goldblum — finds them. And then they’re brought back to the Warner Bros. studio lot.&nbsp;That Jurassic Park mashup is a good teaser for what you can expect from said antics: Looney Tunes-esque characters riffing on pop culture and current events. In one episode, the Warners recreate The Odyssey, posing as Greek deities who help and hinder Odysseus on his journey, while also sprinkling in some pop culture satire (the story’s cyclops is Trump). There are a lot of jokes about reboots and the creative bankruptcy they signify, and the ways Hollywood has or has not changed since the ‘90s. When Dot meets a top female executive, she asks for advice, only to be told “I believe in pulling the ladder up after I climb it!”There are also segments featuring songs (both satirical and semi-educational),&nbsp;while stories featuring other characters are mostly limited to Pinky and the Brain. The wide roster of players that the original show had are largely absent in the reboot. Some of this is for good reason — Hello Nurse, a pinup throwback mainly there to drive the Warner brothers wild, is an astoundingly sexist character for a ‘90s kids cartoon —&nbsp;but otherwise don’t expect any segments solely dedicated to Slappy Squirrel or the mobster pigeons The Goodfeathers.&nbsp;&nbsp;Mostly, the new Animaniacs seems to be attempting to succeed using the old formula. Trouble is, there have been other shows doing excellent showbiz satire in the Animaniacs’ absence, like BoJack Horseman, which managed to skewer Hollywood and the new media ecosystem that now covers it. Rick and Morty is a genre-hopping adventure that lampoons genre tropes while also having plenty to say about the entertainment landscape. And Family Guy has created a whole genre of television where the whole point is in self-aware asides to the audience. (It’s worth noting that the showrunner of the Animaniacs reboot is a Family Guy alum.) Animaniacs, meanwhile, spends a whole Pinky and the Brain segment lambasting Seth Meyers and cute animal memes. It’s an odd segment that makes fun of a version of Seth Meyers with no basis in reality — Meyers being the late-night host most openly interested in giving airtime to unusual topics and more incisive political commentary. Applying the same joke to a more frivolous host, like Jimmy Fallon, would not be much funnier, but at least it would kind of make sense.&nbsp;The problems with the show partially lie in the changes in the industry around it. The original Animaniacs existed in an era where the monoculture reigned; the presumed audiences watched the same shows and movies, which kids picked up on. ( has the star stressing how different that industry was at a time when a TV show could have 40 million viewers watching.) Parodying celebrities was dependable fun at a time where no one had the easy access of perusing a celebrity’s Instagram account, and it was even funnier to see a “children’s” cartoon doing those parodies. Things are different now than they were when Yakko, Wakko, and Dot were first making a mess of the Warner lot. The reboot seems stuck just&nbsp;pointing that out.&nbsp;BoJack Horseman’s comedy succeeded because it was specific. The show was made by people who knew exactly the kind of person who’d watch it, and it lampooned their tastes almost exclusively while also being a work of uncommon emotional honesty. It makes Animaniacs feel like a relic from another time. It might as well be a dinosaur.&nbsp;Most PopularRShowtime streaming might disappear into Paramount Plus.Next year HBO Max will with Discovery Plus, and Disney’s CEO is talking about a for Hulu and Disney Plus, so this rumor about Paramount discontinuing Showtime streaming is no surprise.Showtime’s content the Paramount app, and Paramount’s pushing a discounted $8 (ads) or $13 (fewer ads) combo subscription until October 2nd. .[WSJ]DiOS 16 should let us swipe down for notifications.Antonio makes an excellent point here that completely slipped by me in the months I’ve been using the iOS 16 betas. Swiping down on the home screen is part of my muscle memory for Spotlight, but now that there’s an always present button on the home screen to launch Spotlight, the swipe down gesture could easily be repurposed for Notification Center. Or at least give us the option.With iOS 16 apple now gives you TWO different ways to do a search on your home screen (swipe down from center and tap the pill button at the bottom). This would have been the perfect chance to switch that down swipe to pull down the notification shade, which is all I want in iOS— Antonio G. Di Benedetto (@SuperAntonio64)Worshippers of Elon Musk have flocked to the middle of nowhere in Texas to watch SpaceX’s attempts to build a space-worthy rocket — and to find friends Must ReadsMust ReadsRevolutionizing the media with blog postsDGoogle’s first-party Pixel 6 case proves to be junk.I immediately had the impression that Google’s official cases for the Pixel 6 were awful , but a long-term review from 9to5Google shows just how bad they can get.Here’s to hoping Google does better with the Pixel 7 cases this year.[9to5Google]JSony’s State of Play event starts at 6PM ETYou probably shouldn’t expect an announcement on the level of Nintendo’s , but fingers are crossed for news of some kind about God of War Ragnarok in the . The show will air on&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;. (Update: there was indeed , !)PodcastsPodcastsAUber will pay $100 million to New Jersey for misclassifying drivers, gets to continue misclassifying them.Gizmodo reports that Uber will pay $100 million in back taxes to the state of New Jersey in response to an audit that concluded the company was misclassifying its drivers as independent contractors. But here’s the thing: Uber will pay any amount of money necessary to , because reclassifying them as employees would cause Uber to cease to exist. [Gizmodo]DVictoria Song says the new Fitbit Inspire 3 feels like a product from 2015.Where is the lie?NThe Westworld subreddit is anxious the show will be canceled before the final season.Viewership was way down this season, and the recent changes — including — don’t seem to bode well for what’s been a very expensive show. That said, this season started strong and ended with a whimper, so maybe it’s all for the best.fromJNintendo will announce a release date for the delayed Advance Wars reboot “once it has been determined,” the company told Axios.Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re-Boot Camp, a Nintendo Switch remaster of the first two Advance Wars titles, was delayed from an April launch . It was absent from .I asked Nintendo if Advance Wars 1 + 2 has been cancelled, given the lack of news about it since it was delayed due to the invasion of Ukraine.Nintendo rep's reply: "The release has been delayed. We will announce the new date once it has been determined."— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo)AAlex Jones is on trial yet again.The InfoWars host lost a defamation case over the Sandy Hook shooting by default, and now, a Connecticut jury will decide what he should pay. It’s a near-repeat of a similar case in Texas — but without that state’s limits on financial damages. Jones’ company has filed for bankruptcy, though, setting up a fight over the money.[The New York Times]Most PopularMost PopularEThe retail revolution comes for Congress: Rep. Angie Craig found out her son was trading behind her back.“As a mom, I would be grateful if my college student son was not allowed to own or trade stocks. And as a member of Congress, I’m working to pass a law to force him to listen to his mother,” she told The New York Times.[The New York Times]AApparently Motorola built a fully functional electric Chevy Corvette prototype in the 1990s.The Drive’s Kevin Williams has made what could be one of the greatest EV archeological discoveries of a generation: a 1987 Chevy Corvette EV built by cell-phone pioneer Motorola. This raises so many questions. First and foremost, why the hell was Motorola making cars? Electric cars for that matter? And can I drive it? There’s loads of pics and fun backstory, so I recommend you go check it out. [The Drive]EElon is Elonning again.Musk is wading into the fight between Twitter and security researcher Peiter “Mudge” Zatko again, after. Good luck to whoever at his law firm has been assigned to !Anyone know who the secret clients are? Let’s out them on Twitter rn haha. — Naughtius Maximus (@elonmusk)AThe Twitter whistleblower says he’ll work with Congress on “sorely needed” laws.Peiter “Mudge” Zatko’s attorneys say they hope he offered a window into Twitter’s business operations, including details about potential national security risks, during a Senate hearing today. Lawmakers focused on the threat of foreign agents inside Twitter and proposals to reform the FTC.An attorneys' statement:&nbsp;"Mr. Zatko is hopeful that the Committee’s work today has helped educate the public about just how dire the security and privacy situation is at Twitter ... He remains ready, willing and able to be part of the legislative reform that is sorely needed." — Adi Robertson (@thedextriarchy)RMark Zuckerberg has very good lawyers.As a way of dragging its heels in , Meta is trying to get as much court-ordered information as it possibly can on rivals like Snapchat and TikTok.The threat here is less that Meta will discover Snapchat’s secret sauce, and more that this (and a dozen other motions) will overwhelm the FTC’s ability to properly try the case with its existing resources.[Bloomberg.com]EWaze has more torture for your return to the office.The new “pokes fun at the people we can all become at work — acronym-slinging, jargon-parroting, catchphrase machines,” and features phrases like “Make a U-turn: Or what I call ‘circling back.’” Thanks, Waze, but I think I’ll stick with my Boy Band voice directions for now.Our driving experience for the month is designed to help you drive synergy.Let’s table this discussion and see if you can figure out what it is. — waze (@waze)ASpecialized teases its new e-bike brand Globe with a poem and a cheeky logo.Earlier this year, a new sub-brand called Globe dedicated to building high-quality electric utility bikes that are designed specifically to replace car trips. We still don’t know what these bikes will look like, but today the company released its brand statement in the form of a poem, which is cute. Specialized promises it will have more to say on September 27th, so mark you calendars. MA woman is suing San Francisco after the city used DNA from her rape kit to arrest her for an unrelated crime.The police’s practice of using DNA from sexual assault victims to identify suspects in other cases came to light . At the time, legal experts said the practice likely violated California’s constitution. It’s yet another example of the posed by growing DNA databases. [CBSNews]

The Verge logo. Watching the original Animaniacs today is probably the closest you can get to scrolling through a TikTok feed from the mid-’90s. The madcap variety show was like Looney Tunes by way of golden-age Saturday Night Live, a pre-social media era meme factory that seemed more interested in parodying show business and celebrity than actually entertaining children. (The first episode is about a dang psychiatrist to the stars!) Funny thing is, kids loved the antics of the Warner brothers and sister as they guffawed and rampaged their way across studio lots. Adults, on the other hand,...

Hulu’s Animaniacs reboot can’t survive a BoJack Horseman world

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