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Margaret Selby (2000)

Chuck Jones: Extremes & Inbetweens – A Life in Animation is a 2000 American television documentary film directed by Margaret Selby. The film chronicles the career of legendary Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies director Chuck Jones. The film features interviews with Jones himself, as well as Matt Groening, Steven Spielberg, Roger Ebert, John Lasseter, Whoopi Goldberg, Ron Howard, Lorne Michaels, Leonard Maltin, Robin Williams, Eric Goldberg, Joe Dante, June Foray, and others. The film was originally broadcast as part of the Great Performances series on November 22, 2000 on PBS, and later released to VHS and DVD by Warner Home Video on October 22, 2002.

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Tom Ruegger (2020)

Animaniacs is a variety show, with short skits featuring a large cast of characters. While the show had no set format, the majority of episodes were composed of three short mini-episodes, each starring a different set of characters, and bridging segments. Hallmarks of the series included its music, character catchphrases, and humor directed at an adult audience.

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Rusty Mills, Ron Fleischer, Randy Rogel, & Tom Ruegger (1993)

Discover America with Wakko Warner from Animaniacs.

As I’ve said before, learning should be fun!

Wakko’s America is a song from Episode 21 of Animaniacs. Like Yakko’s World, it is a geographical patter song, this one listing each of the United States of America and their respective capitals. The song is framed as Wakko’s answer to a Jeopardy! Daily Double question asked in a lesson taught by Miss Flamiel, which Wakko ultimately gets wrong because he does not phrase his answer in the form of a question. The music is Turkey in the Straw, with lyrics written by Randy Rogel. The song is the eighth track on the album Yakko’s World.

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Rusty Mills & Randy Rogel (1993)

Take a trip around the world with Yakko Warner.

Learning should be fun!

Yakko’s World is a song from Episode 2, which features the animated shorts Yakko’s World, Cookies For Einstein, and Win Big, and probably the most famous of their songs. In the song, Yakko names all of the nations of the world at that time. A clip of the sing-along version of this song has been viewed more than ten million times on YouTube. To this day, Rob Paulsen, the voice of Yakko, never misses an opportunity to perform this song live, rarely with error.

The song was written by Randy Rogel, a writer from Batman: The Animated Series and Animaniacs, whose son was studying geography. When he saw that “United States, Canada” rhymed with “Mexico, Panama,” he got to work on the lyrics and sent the song to Animaniacs. The music is that of the “Jarabe Tapatío,” better known as the Mexican Hat Dance tune, a traditional Mexican song.

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Tom Ruegger (2020)

The 2020 revival of Animaniacs is an upcoming animated slapstick comedy series for Hulu.

The Warner siblings — Yakko and Wakko, and the Warner sister Dot — have a great time wreaking havoc and mayhem in the lives of everyone they meet. After returning to their beloved home (the Warner Bros. Water Tower), the Animaniacs waste no time in causing chaos and comic confusion as they run loose through the studio and beyond, turning the world into their personal playground. Joining Yakko, Wakko and Dot, fan-favorite characters Pinky and the Brain will also return to continue their quest for world domination in each of the 13 episodes.

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Chuck Jones (1955)

One Froggy Evening is a 1955 American Technicolor animated musical short film written by Michael Maltese and directed by Chuck Jones, with musical direction by Milt Franklyn. The short, partly inspired by a 1944 Cary Grant film entitled Once Upon a Time involving a dancing caterpillar in a small box, marks the debut of Michigan J. Frog. This popular short contained a wide variety of musical entertainment, with songs ranging from “Hello! Ma Baby” and “I’m Just Wild About Harry”, two Tin Pan Alley classics, to “Largo al Factotum”, Figaro’s aria from the opera Il Barbiere di Siviglia. The short was released on December 31 (New Year’s Eve), 1955 as part of Warner Bros.’ Merrie Melodies series of cartoons.

Filmmaker Steven Spielberg, in the PBS Chuck Jones biographical documentary Extremes & Inbetweens: A Life in Animation, called One Froggy Evening “the Citizen Kane of animated shorts”. In 1994, it was voted No.  5 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field. In 2003, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”, and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

It Hopped One Night: A Look at “One Froggy Evening”

A Behind-the-Scenes look at the making of the classic Looney Tunes cartoon One Froggy Evening.

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Steven Spielberg (1998)

Steven Spielberg presents Toonsylvania, an animated television series which ran for two seasons in 1998 on the Fox Kids Network block in its first season, then was moved to Monday afternoons from September 14, 1998 until January 18, 1999, when it was cancelled.

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Barry Cook (1993)

During a picnic, Baby Herman follows a beaver into a perilous sawmill – with Roger Rabbit in frantic pursuit.

Trail Mix-Up is a 1993 short, starring Roger Rabbit, that was shown before the feature A Far Off Place. This is the third and final animated Roger Rabbit short, produced after the 1988 film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It was made by Walt Disney Pictures and Amblin Entertainment.