If you grew up in the ’90s, you definitely remember some of the best animated shows that ever aired on TV: Rugrats, Doug, Batman: The Animated Series, Hey Arnold!, The Powerpuff Girls, and plenty of other big names. But in 1993, one show came along that was basically a sketch show, with different characters coming and going throughout the episodes. And it was through this series that two characters who were originally nothing more than supporting players started gaining enough popularity for people to consider giving them a TV show of their own. One was the smartest and most rational being imaginable, always coming up with a plan with one very specific goal in mind; the other was basically his complete opposite, barely able to keep up with his friend’s train of thought and somehow always ending up at the center of a disaster.
Maybe you’ve already figured out which show we’re talking about, but the thing is that it’s not even remembered as much as it should be (at least by most people). Luckily, there’s still part of the audience that never stopped appreciating it, helping turn it into a true cult classic.
In September 1995, Pinky and the Brain got its own series after winning over audiences in Animaniacs, remember? And the idea behind it was ridiculously simple: two genetically modified lab mice living at Acme Labs — Brain, who spends pretty much all of his time trying to figure out a way to take over the world, and Pinky, his lab partner, who usually has no idea what’s going on and always helps make the entire plan fall apart. In total, the show ran for about four seasons, with 65 episodes produced. And yes, they probably could have worked perfectly well as a sketch, but the premise had enough potential to go a little further.
The series didn’t need to come up with a brand-new motivation for Brain in every episode, because his goal was to take over the world, period. What changed was how he tried to do it. Sometimes it involved technology, sometimes politics, sometimes celebrities, sometimes an obvious parody of a movie, and sometimes even a historical event. So the basic structure stayed the same, but the context changed enough to keep the production from feeling like it was telling the exact same story every week. It was basically a collection of creative ideas that could be explored a little further, regardless of whether everyone already knew that, at the end of the day, the plan wasn’t going to work — but that was the fun of it. The point was to keep watching until the end of the episode to find out exactly how the plan would fall apart.
But the real secret behind Pinky and the Brain was the dynamic between the two characters. Brain is brilliant, strategic, and capable of coming up with plans that, at least in his own head, should work perfectly, right? The problem is that he’s also an absurdly arrogant mouse, and that makes all the difference. If he were just a flawless genius with a perfect plan who was always sabotaged by Pinky, the show probably wouldn’t have aged nearly as well because of how predictable it would have become. Instead, Brain is always responsible for his own problems, since his arrogance, obsession, and ego make him take things too far, ignore the obvious, and refuse to accept that maybe he made a mistake. To top it all off, he’s basically trying to reorganize the entire structure of society while literally planning everything from inside a lab cage. And Pinky is the one who keeps his friend from taking himself too seriously, because he’s not malicious and usually responds with some completely out-of-left-field observation.
The funny thing is that they were created based on the personalities of two writers/producers who worked with creator Tom Ruegger: Tom Minton and Eddie Fitzgerald. The former was pretty reserved, according to Ruegger, while the latter was much more outgoing and would often throw random words like “Narf!” and “Egad!” into conversations. And because Minton spoke so quietly while Fitzgerald would burst into laughter and comments, it almost seemed like both of them were secretly plotting something. That’s where the inspiration came from: Animaniacs animator Bruce Timm drew caricatures of them, which were later turned into mice by the show’s creator.
And maybe the most interesting part of all is that Pinky and the Brain worked for both adults and kids, since the series understood that people could watch the same episodes and laugh at completely different things. While a child might find it funny to watch Brain trying to take over the world, an adult could pick up on a reference to politics, literature, movies, or TV. In other words, the show was clever in its approach, much like The Simpsons, for example, which, even though it was aimed at an adult audience, could still appeal to some younger viewers. Warner Bros., the studio behind it, clearly saw that potential too, since it aired Season 1 during primetime (although the ratings didn’t live up to expectations, and the series was eventually moved to the Kids’ WB block).
It’s worth remembering that, even though Pinky and the Brain may seem like something that belongs in the ’90s nostalgia box, it’s actually more than that. We’re talking about a show that earned praise well beyond its audience, winning a Primetime Emmy in 1996 for A Pinky and the Brain Christmas in the category of Outstanding Animated Program. Later on, it also earned recognition at the Daytime Emmys, including a win for Rob Paulsen for his performance as Pinky. It was always a well-produced series, with a team of writers and voice actors who knew how to keep expanding and reshaping the premise so it wouldn’t become boring over time.
Of course, some of the references have inevitably aged, since the writing played around with figures like Orson Welles, shows like Beverly Hills, 90210, and films that were part of the cultural landscape at the time. But for the most part, the relationship between both characters and the world around them doesn’t depend on anything particularly specific to the ’90s. Because of that, Warner tried to extend their run in other ways after the original series ended in 1998: the mice were paired with Elmyra Duff in Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain. Unfortunately, that experiment lasted only one season and 13 episodes, which ended up reinforcing something the original show had already made pretty clear: what made everything work, above all else, was the dynamic between the two characters. That’s why they eventually returned in the Animaniacs revival in 2020.
The ’90s, as mentioned earlier, are considered by an entire generation to be one of the best eras for animated TV shows, but Pinky and the Brain managed to stand out in a very specific way: it turned a joke that could have lasted five minutes into a story that ran for several seasons. That might not sound like much, but stretching a premise that simple requires a tremendous amount of creativity to keep an audience interested. In the end, the plan to take over the world never needed to succeed to be entertaining; all Brain had to do was come up with another strategy the next day.
