Six Days a Week - An 'Animaniacs' Retro Recap: 'Temporary Insanity'

Written by Mike Cervantes

Episode 6:
This episode has a cold open. For little to no reason the Warners spoof the intro to Flipper, singing about their own obnoxiousness as they swim like dolphins and get Ralph the Guard smashed against a buoy on waterskis.

Temporary Insanity
This is another Thaddeus Plotz-centered episode. I don’t know why they chose to put two-episodes with the same antagonist back-to-back, but whatever. Plotz’s unnamed secretary has come down with a case of gale-force sneezing and goes home sick for the day. Without his secretary, Plotz is absolutely helpless, and accidentally dials the Warners’ water tower.

Aside from, arguably, 'Nighty-Night Toons', this is the first look we get at the interior of the water tower. I’m sure as a kid you wouldn’t mind living there: it is covered in movie posters, has a train ride and a log flume, a water fountain over a WB-shield topiary, a pipe organ, a couple basketball hoops, and a backdrop resembling a normal living room. They also have a Bugs Bunny shaped phone, which introduces the major running gag of this cartoon: every time the phone rings, the Warners fight over who gets to answer it, with Wakko the least likely to win the battle.

Plotz lets the Warners stay as temps after seeing Dot competently set up an appointment for Kevin Costner. It doesn’t take long though, for things to go awry. Dot keeps holding all the calls, and Yakko tries to dupe Plotz into signing a check for 80 zillion dollars. Then Mel Gibson walks in, and Dot throws herself at him the same way the brothers do with Hello Nurse. Yakko gets kicked out of Plotz’s office and has his check torn up.

After a blackout, Plotz gives the Warners a task apiece: Wakko is supposed to make copies, Yakko is supposed to type a letter, and Dot is supposed to file. Yakko imitates Jerry Lewis’ invisible typewriter gag while Wakko Xeroxes an x-ray of himself and breaks the copier, sending paper flying all over. Dot takes out a giant nail file and literally files down the papers given to her until she wears out a hole in the carpet. Frustrated, Plotz tries to get the three of them to take a letter. None of them get it right. Plotz is prepared to throw them out when the phone rings again, and THIS time Wakko is dertermined to get it, chasing the phone all around the office and pulling down phone towers until they level the whole building. Wakko answers the phone and tells Plotz his secretary is still out for one more day. Plotz gets knocked out by a brick. End of cartoon.

Operation: Lollipop
At least after the Warners-heavy first half, we get a pair of new characters. Buttons and Mindy are the last step of evolution for a specific cartoon plot-type that’s been around since the 1950s: The innocent toddler, Mindy (voiced by Nancy “Bart Simpson” Cartwright) leaves the safety of her baby harness and her backyard to chase after an object of interest, in this episode a lollipop. Her caretaker, a dog named Buttons (Frank Welker) chases her and absorbs all the damage that’d understandably occur when a toddler walks off on their own. There are other famous cartoon characters who had runs doing this plot, but that’s for another episode.

Mindy’s lollipop gets stuck on the side of a mail truck. For much of the cartoon, Mindy and the lollipop remain glued to the side of the truck while Buttons takes several headers from the mail truck in an attempt to stop it. He’s momentarily distracted by a fire hydrant, and a crocodile down a sewer manhole. Then when the lollipop gets tossed onto an air mail plane, Buttons boards the plane by getting crushed in the landing gear compartment, and then has to climb the side of the plane in mid-flight in order to retrieve Mindy, and float safely back into the backyard using a mailbag as a parachute. Compared to what would happen in later episodes, this is probably the easiest Buttons has it in his entire run.

What Are We?
This episode ends on a song. In the episode itself, there is no title card, but other episode guides and listings say this segment is called “What Are We?”

Dr. Scratchansniff attempts to cure The Warners with hypnosis. When it doesn’t work he questions, among other things, what species the Warners are supposed to be. The song itself is just the Warners themselves questioning whether they’re dogs, cats, bugs, horses fleas, or eels. They simply come to the conclusion that “they’re cute,” and give Scratchansniff a great big kiss.

Adult Jokes and Neat Moments:
-Wakko eats Plotz’s paperweight. “Give me back my paperweight!” “Okay, but you’ll have to wait a while.”
-Dot: "Mr. Sinatra, hold. Mr. Redford, hold….Me. Mr. President. Get to work!"

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