In the animation renaissance of the early ’90s, Steven Spielberg, fresh off of producing Who Framed Roger Rabbit, sought to further capture the spirit of the golden age of cartoons that defined the medium in new projects. The Hollywood giant set his sights on bringing Saturday morning cartoons back to the classic Warner Brothers standard set by the Looney Tunes theatrical shorts that his generation grew up on. While Tiny Toon Adventures was the first step in this endeavor, Animaniacs (1993) was a giant leap in ringing in the toon boom of the decade.
Animaniacs was a Looney Tunes for a modern age and featured sparkling new personalities, dazzling animation, and hilarious comedy worthy of the animation pantheon that came before it. Along with the whip-smart writing, the show’s voice acting firmly rooted the Warner siblings and company into a classically vaudevillian sensibility fitting of the Tunes origins. The principal voice cast of both the original series and Hulu’s 2020 revival (which recently debuted its second season) follows in the steps of Mel Blanc in providing vocal performances that are rubbery, distinct, and varied, often in the same breath.
So just sit back and relax as we take a look at the voice actors that bring Animaniacs to insaney life.
Rob Paulsen
Among the cast, Rob Paulsen can be heard prominently playing the most roles in both series. He voices the eldest Yakko Warner, the lovably bumbling lab rat Pinky, and the studio lot’s resident psychoanalyst Dr. Otto von Scratchansniff. As Yakko, Paulsen’s performance conveys the elastic charm of a careered showman, balancing snide, worldly wit and energetic exuberance. He also plays the foolish comic foil just as well when voicing the dim-witted rodent and the self-serious studio shrink. Paulsen is also a consummate singer, tasked to render such famously mile-a-minute tunes as “Yakko’s World,” “The Multiplication Song,” and “I Am the Very Model of a Cartoon Individual.” After surviving stage III throat cancer from a 2016 diagnosis, Rob Paulsen continues to voice the roles he originated for the series, and maintains a decorated career in the industry. His most well-known roles outside of Animaniacs are Carl Wheezer in The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and alternating roles among the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Jess Harnell
Jess Harnell voices the snack-packing middle Warner child, Wakko. Among voice artists, a common method of creating a character’s voice is basing it off of an impression of an existing voice or accent and branching it out from there into something new. For Animaniacs, Harnell channeled an exaggerated English Liverpool accent reminiscent of The Beatles’ Ringo Starr to give Wakko a fundamentally silly vocal texture. Wakko is also the most overtly childish of the Warner siblings, with Harnell touting gross-out bodily sound effects and funny inflections at any given chance, while also portraying him with a genuine childlike innocence. Outside of Wakko, Harnell is one of those voice actors that doesn’t have as many iconic roles as his contemporaries, but has a transformative range that can be found anywhere in incidental roles. He is the AutoBot Ironhide in Michael Bay’s first three Transformers films and can be heard in various roles throughout Rick and Morty, most memorably as Scary Terry.
Tress MacNeille
Tress MacNeille plays Princess Angelina Louisa Cantessa Francesca Banana Fanna Bo Besca III, or Dot Warner for short. MacNeille’s greatest asset is her ability to fit into any archetype that is thrown at her while also making the role her own as a believable character. She can play a tottering grandmother figure, a no-nonsense businesswoman, and the lively precocious youth often within the same project, giving each an earthy sense of realism that, while sounding silly, still feels like a three-dimensional personality. Both as Dot and Babs in Tiny Toons, MacNeille is able to embody a fully-rounded expression of comic femininity in a single breath. She can be disgustingly cute in one moment, stoutheartedly emboldened in the next, and cartoonishly beside herself after that. The comedy of Dot Warner comes from her juxtaposition of having the caustic wit of an aged prima donna in the body of a cute and cuddly cartoon girl, and MacNeille's voice reflects that expertly. MacNeille is also most well-known for playing Charlotte Pickles on Rugrats, Agnes Skinner on The Simpsons, and Disney’s Daisy Duck!
Maurice LaMarche
In addition to providing the modern voices of classic characters like Yosemite Sam and Fred Flintstone, Maurice LaMarche is Animaniacs’ resident impressionist. His talent of capturing the characteristics of well-known personalities like Vincent Price and Charlton Heston through voice alone has been employed by other series such as The Simpsons, The Critic, and Futurama to great success. His most well-known impression is that of Orson Welles, whom LaMarche would recite lines from as a vocal warm-ups exercise before recording. In Animaniacs, LaMarche’s spot-on impersonation of Welles was utilized to its fullest when in the role of ACME Labs’ own wannabe-rodent dictator, The Brain. LaMarche’s voice gives The Brain a maniacal yet dignified intelligence that can go from grandiose assertions of superiority to dramatic lamentations when his plans fall astray each and every night. He is also most well-known to '90s kids as Big Bob Pataki on Hey Arnold and the villainous Father on Codename: Kids Next Door.
Frank Welker
If the previously mentioned Mel Blanc was “the man of one thousand voices,” Frank Welker is the man of one thousand more voices and a one-man zoo. On Animaniacs, Welker voices Ralph the Guard, the dim-witted security officer of the Warner Bros. studio lot who tries to capture the Warner siblings and lock them in the water tower. He was also the voice of studio CEO Thaddeus Plotz in the original series, who is absent entirely from the Hulu revival. To say that Welker has voiced a lot of famous characters would be a gross understatement. With a legendary range that allows him to play any sort of character, Welker’s credits include the fearsome Decepticon leader Megatron in various Transformers projects, The Infraggable Krunk in Dexter’s Laboratory, and pulling double duty on modern Scooby-Doo titles as Fred Jones and Scooby himself, just to name a few. Apart from speaking roles, Welker is also the go-to voice actor for animal and creature sounds, having voiced Abu in Disney’s Aladdin, Nibbler on Futurama, and Slimer on The Real Ghostbusters animated series, still naming just a few. Welker’s skills as a voice-over artist are impeccable, intimidating, and oftentimes inhuman.