From the Water Tower to the Reg Lenna: Animaniacs in Concert is Totally Insaney

Animaniacs Live

The Reader's Nick Warren sits down with the creators, voices, and the composer from the 90s animated series Animaniacs for an interview ahead of their upcoming stage performance in nearby Jamestown, New York.

If it's the first Saturday in March, and you're asking "what are we going to do tonight?" then we have the answer for you. And no, we're not trying to take over the world … this time.

That question kicked off nearly every short for Pinky and the Brain on Animaniacs. Arguably the apex of the '90s cartoon boom, the Steven Spielberg-produced cartoon anthology combined quirky, intelligent writing with the best animation and voice acting in the business, along with dozens of unforgettable songs.

The man behind most of those songs is Randy Rogel. The multi-talented composer was actually a writer for Batman: The Animated Series (the other best animated series of the 1990s) before moving on to Animaniacs. His first songwriting idea set the bar pretty high, too. It is perhaps the quintessential patter song of the 20th century, "Yakko's World."

The real voices behind many of these songs and characters are Rob Paulsen and Maurice LaMarche. Together they are landmark talents in the world of voice acting. They're also Pinky and the Brain.

For one night at the Reg Lenna Theatre in Jamestown, New York, Paulsen, LaMarche, and Rogel will perform some of their beloved songs, sketches, and behind the scenes insights on Animaniacs for an all-ages extravaganza fit for newcomers and fans alike. I was lucky enough to talk to Paulsen, LaMarche, and Rogel prior to their performance. My childhood is soaring right now.

Nick Warren (NW): So what brought this tour together?

Rob Paulsen (RP): Actually it started as a result of me doing a podcast years ago. That morphed from doing interviews, like going to Moe's [Maurice LaMarche's] home and talking to him, to doing live events. And then ultimately, I was doing a podcast once a week at the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club, which was a venue that Jon owned at the Universal CityWalk. And people love Animaniacs, so I said [to Rogel] 'hey man why don't you come down and sing a bunch of songs' and everybody loved it. There was some kind of little electric keyboard thing on the stage. And then it kind of morphed into a labor of love. And then Randy went on and did a ton of work and got a hold of the Warner Brothers licensing, and Amblin. So we got their blessing. And Maurice was kind enough to join the little dog, pony, and brain show. It is an absolute gas. And we've got, I don't know, 20 gigs between now and the end of May.

Randy Rogel (RR): We've had, since last July, 43 symphony gigs. We're now booked all over the country. We're going to the Toronto Symphony then the Schenectady symphony, plus all the individual gigs. So the show's really grown. It's a really great evening.

NW: Besides some of the classic songs, the favorites that we might expect to hear, what else would fans kind of be surprised by at this concert?

Maurice LaMarche (MLM): They might be surprised at the fact that I can almost sing [laughs]. No, but we do a couple of comedy sketches in there, and a couple of them are us doing our voices from the other shows we do, but it's very rapid fire and we meet not only Warner Bros. characters, but also characters from Futurama and characters from The Simpsons and Ghostbusters. Towards the end of the show, we do a Pinky and the Brain take on the countries of the world by way of Abbott and Costello. So it's very fun. So there's comedy involved as well as music.

RR: Maurice has a solo.

MLM: Yeah, there's a whole solo song and it's just a lot of fun. And it's an 'inside baseball' evening too. You get a lot of behind the scenes stories of how the songs came to be, and it's just a really, really great evening.

RP: You'll see that the mean age of the audience will probably be around 40 to 45.

NW: Yeah, that's exactly my age [laughs].

RP: And it's their kids, sometimes people our age with their grandkids and their kids. It is, as they say, a show for kids of all ages. It's not a not a bunch of people running around in Animaniacs costumes.

RR: If I can make that point, you don't need to know Animaniacs in order to enjoy the show, and you don't need to be a kid to enjoy the show.

NW: So you guys brought up some of your very, very many credits. I think the two of you had almost 1,000 IMDb credits combined. Obviously, you've got the heavy hitters. You know, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You mentioned Futurama, and Ghostbusters, obviously, Animaniacs. What are some of the more obscure ones that fans come up to you and say, 'Oh, I love you in this?'

MLM: Gosh, like Captain Simian and the Space Monkeys [laughs], which was a brilliant show that never got its due. But it was really science fiction. We had Michael Dorn in the cast and Malcolm McDowell. And it was created by the late Gordon Bressack. Who wrote a lot of the very, very funny Pinky and the Brain [episodes]. The more high-concept ones. And, and so that's one that people hit me with. Taz-mania.

NW: Oh, yeah. I loved that show!

MLM: The story of the Tasmanian devil. We were both on that. Really good show. We'll occasionally get requests and bring in our film work too like Frozen and Zootopia.

RP: And Moe is pretty much the guy on Futurama. I mean, he's done, yeah, how many cases do you have?

MLM: 72 [laughs]. But you know, it's Billy West that is the central core of the show. I'm just in the orbit. I'm the Hank Azaria [laughs].

RP: It's really remarkable what Moe does, that really adds a whole different dimension. Because as you suggested, between Moe and me, we have a lot of characters, both sort of on the first string and the second string that people recognize. And then Randy's music is ultimately the star of the show. And when people hear songs that didn't make it, then they start to kind of understand that, you know, this guy goes to sit in an office and the producer says, 'Yeah, I'm not crazy about that. Go write something else, we've gotta ship next week.' You can't wait for the muse to hit you. So it's a pretty remarkable skill set that Randy possesses. And the audience sings, they sometimes cry, their children sing. It's unbelievable.

This interview was edited for length and clarity and was a dream come true for the interviewer.

Saturday, Mar. 2 // 7:30 p.m. // Reg Lenna Center for the Arts, 16 E. 3rd St., Jamestown, N.Y. // All ages // $19-$52 // For tickets and info: animaniacslive.com