Six Days a Week - An 'Animaniacs' Retro Recap: 'Taming of the Screwy'

​Written by Mike Cervantes

Episode 5: Taming of the Screwy
So the show has made it clear what its standard format is going to be. Time to go back to basics: a full half-hour with a single story focused on The Warners.

The studio chairman is throwing a fancy dinner party for some Japanese foreign investors, who are prepared to give the studio a billion dollars after meeting everyone on the lot, including The Warners. It’s up to Dr. Scratchansniff to teach the Warners table manners in time for the party. Predictably, the first half of the cartoon is made up of Scratchansniff’s failed attempts to get the three of them to behave, along with a handful of Hello Nurse gags thrown in for good measure. Clearly the Warners want to go to the party, so they show Scratchy that they can behave just fine at the very end of the debacle, and blatantly say they give him such a hard time “because they love him.” Once again if he was in any way a good therapist, he could at least learn not to lose patience with the Warner’s antics because he knows it’s their way of showing him affection.

The night of the party comes and The Warners are well dressed and well-mannered. The investors are clearly very bored, and only brought around by a joke spoken by Yakko in Japanese. That doesn’t stop Plotz from throwing them out before they can do any real damage. Yakko declares “I know when we should just go home, NOW is not one of those times.” After bugging the guests, playing “Turkey in the Straw” on the fiddle, starting a food fight, and sending themselves, Plotz, and Scratchansniff swinging from a chandelier, the investors show up again and are impressed with the party. Then they walk off with Madonna, while The Warners run off with Plotz’s check.
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On a side note, outside of the boardroom a man holding a script says “It was a chicken, I tell you, a giant chicken!” This is a running catchphrase in the Chicken Boo shorts, spoken before Chicken Boo was even introduced.

Adult Jokes and Neat Moments:
-Scratchansniff: "Stop playing with my bust!" Yakko: "Goodnight everybody!"
-Ralph stops Robert Patrick as the T-1000 from entering the black tie event in a policeman’s outfit. He melts into liquid metal and emerges in a tux.
-Michelle Pfeiffer, in full Catwoman costume, asks the Warner Brothers if they are “like the studio.” Yakko replies “Not much, but we’re kinda stuck with it.” Wow, Yakko got real.  

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