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Pinky & The Brain
100 Points, 4 Lists, Highest Vote: #3 Johnny Unusual
Source: Animaniacs
Duo-Type: Genius/Insane
Pinky is a lab mouse who has been genetically altered to be more intelligent than the average mouse. The result was… mixed. Though sentient and able to do what the average mouse can’t, Pinky is considered “insane” due to his strange personality and tendency to make up nonsense words like “narf”. Pinky is friendly, kind, hyperactive and easily distracted. Though he lacks social skills, his personality often makes him quicker to be ingratiated with new people. It has also been shown that not only does he not seem to mind certain kinds of pain (especially blunt force, like a blow to the head or running into glass), he finds it fun. Such a tender-hearted and naïve soul’s friend could only be someone like….
The Brain is a mouse who had been genetically altered to become more intelligent than the average mouse. Prior to these, the Brain had experienced the loss of his parents (who he lived with in a can of “World’s Finest Peaches”) and cruel experiments on learned helplessness caused him to want to never feel out of control again and gain what he lost… the world! After the experiments, the Brain became super-intelligent and dedicated himself to world domination. Seeing the human race as poor keepers of the Earth (and often being proven right), the Brain is constantly concocting plans to conquer the Earth and become its undisputed master. Brilliant but cynical, the Brain is arrogant but in fact sometimes struggles or even fails by OVERestimating the common man. For example, plans that involve becoming popular usually need help from his sidekick…
Pinky and the Brain are two laboratory mice plotting to take over the world. The Brain is the mastermind while Pinky is his right-hand man, constantly assisting him in his plots. The two seem to constantly get close to victory but usually something goes wrong to ruin it. Though Pinky is often given the blame, more often than not it’s an unexpected oversight on the Brain’s part or sometimes a miscommunication between the two. The Brain is angry but usually undeterred and each failure is a promise to Pinky to try again tomorrow night. The two live inside Acme Labs and it seems the workers are ignorant to the duo’s intelligence and nocturnal activities.
Often, the two’s very different points of view often lead to Brain annoyed and Pinky largely oblivious. The difference is often accentuated in the recurring gag “Are You Pondering What I’m Pondering?”, a question posed by Brain to which he usually gets a non-sequitur response. But Pinky is ever loyal to his friend and despite the nature of his desire is steadfast in his faith that the Brain would make the world a better place due to his intelligence. Sometimes, the duo even faces dangerous foes, including Snowball, a super-intelligent hamster who considers himself the Brain’s rival. For the time the duo also lived with Elmyra from Tiny Toons (something the show’s staff was not into).
Pinky and the Brain debuted on Animaniacs and were such a smash got their own program not long after. Why does a character with such a villainous pursuit charm us so? Because we know they are going to fail. It’s very much a Wile E. Coyote thing; we don’t want them to get what they want in theory but we are also strangely feeling for these guys. It makes for a great antihero and the duo works because despite the Brain often berating and bopping Pinky on the head, the show’s longer run times actually allowed for stories that showed that Pinky cares deeply for Brain and while Brain is poor at showing it, he sometimes is forced to see how much he cares for Pinky. You kind of want them to win, you kind of want the Coyote to get the Roadrunner, you kind of want that rabbit to get those Trix (seriously, why keep them from him). It probably won’t make them as happy as they think (have you TASTED Trix?) but with so much effort and passion and pain… it’s got to count for something, right? But unlike the other examples, Pinky and the Brain still has friends (and maybe more), which is more than the Coyote gets.
Iconic Moment:
You know, while Animaniacs was a return to old-fashioned wacky cartoons (yes, the road was paved with Tiny Toon Adventures but often the Adventure part got in the way), the series did try for pathos with the Rita and Runt cartoons… that I found interminable. But strangely Pinky and the Brain was much more successful, taking the irreverent couple and building a foundation with the Pinky and the Brain Christmas Special. The writers and stars talk about how Pinky and the Brain is really a love story but this is the episode that cemented it. In it, The Brain tries to take over the world on Christmas… and does. But when the Brain reads Pinky’s letter to Santa… well, it’s a great moment and one that I think really pushed the direction of these characters into an unexpectedly emotional place.
Fun fact, apparently when Maurice LaMarche first did the script read, his voice cracked in an affecting manner. After that, voice directing/casting legend Andrea Romano insisted these readthroughs are recorded to capture unexpected/unrepeatable moments.