By Nelson Schneider - 11/21/21 at 02:13 PM CT
I just got done watching the second season of Hulu’s rebooted “Animaniacs” cartoon. It was one of my favorite shows in the ‘90s, and along with “DuckTales,” the new seasons came as a delightful and unexpected surprise. While “DuckTales” was never intended to be anything more than an adventure show, “Animaniacs,” on the other hand, frequently delved into political satire and social commentary, even during its original run.
Of course, with the two new seasons we got in 2020 and 2021, that didn’t change, and the Season 2 premier, in which the Warners make fun of Roman Emperor Nero whole opaquely comparing him to Trump, is one of the single greatest pieces of cartoon satire I’ve ever encountered. Unfortunately, as the second season went on, a bit of Left Fringe Wokeness started to push itself to the forefront. For the most part, the rebooted “Animaniacs” has been very even-keeled, mocking Trumpism, world dictators, and even Wokeness itself, such as the off-handed comment by The Brain, referring to his brain-damaged sidekick, Pinky, as ‘Woke’ and even the overt references to how “gender-balanced, pronoun-neutral, and ethnically diverse” the Warners are (not) in the revised opening theme song.
However, sketches mocking Ben Franklin and Christopher Columbus, belittling their contributions went a bit too far. I know very well that in 2021 we didn’t celebrate “Columbus Day” in America, but “Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” due to an attempt at ‘de-colonizing’ and Canceling Columbus. Fine, he wasn’t the first European to discover America (Lief Erikson beat him to the punch by 500 years), but the intent of the holiday was to commemorate exploration and discovery. An “Explorers’ Day” would have made more sense, but indigenous people are ‘brown’ and European explorers are not, so guess which was more politically expedient. The Warners even skipped explaining how Columbus didn’t call the Bahamians “Indians” because he thought he was in India, but because they were ‘in Dei,’ as ‘in the image of God,’ the ultimate non-racist compliment a European Catholic could give.
So, to balance the equation, if the rebooted show gets renewed for a third season (which isn’t guaranteed, as it was only financed for two seasons up front), I’d like to see the Warners tackle a few sticky situations that the Hard Left loves to ignore.
5. Mocking MLK
Since everyone is dog-piling on the Christopher Columbus and Founding Fathers Hate Trains, it’s only fair to let the air out of the over-inflated image of this Leftist icon. While we primarily remember the late Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. for his “I Have a Dream” speech, in which he espoused a wonderful, colorblind vision of the future, the reason that’s the only part of his legacy lodged in our collective memory is that he had a LOT of negative baggage to go along with it. He was a Southern Baptist preacher (the same denomination as the Westboro looneys), but he was also (according to the FBI) a serial philanderer and sexual predator. (#metoo) On top of that, he was a repeat-offender plagiarist and a full-throated, unapologetic Marxist. Trying to square all of that socio-political turmoil in one man requires overwhelming amounts of hypocrisy, and that’s just the kind of cracked façade the Warners are able to pick clean apart.
4. Mocking Mother Teresa
While Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu is primarily an icon of the Religious Right, the political Left has had a reputation of kissing her ass for completely unknown reasons. I mean, why would any self-respecting Liberal show any respect for a woman who spent her life preaching against family planning in a country where overpopulation is the single biggest problem… and could be SOLVED by family planning? On top of that, the old bitch was rolling in wealth due to donations coming in from all over the world for her “humanitarian” work, yet the woman actually practiced a form of sadism, thanks to her “deeply held belief” that “Suffering is a gift from God.” How she managed to sell that line of BS in a country that was historically Hindu and Buddhist, with the complete opposite view of suffering, is beyond me.
3. A Catchy Song Tearing-Down the Traditional Hindu Caste System
Yakko Warner, voiced by national treasure, Rob Paulsen, is known for frequently bursting into song at a moment’s notice. While none of the songs in the rebooted series have been as spectacular as “Yakko’s Universe” or “The Nations of the World,” they’re still fun, but have taken a somewhat darker turn, addressing some of Medieval Europe’s military conflicts. What better way to balance-out the constant mockery of Western Civilization than by mocking the most repudiant aspect of Near Eastern Civilization: The Hindu Caste System! You know, that rigid social hierarchy that is the polar opposite of Meritocracy? Of course, even if such a teardown did come out of a modern Hollywood Writers’ Room, it would likely try to place all the blame for the Caste System’s problems on some sort of “corruption” introduced by “colonialism” during the British Raj era. *sigh*
2. A Historic Visit to Someplace in Africa During the Origins of the Slave Trade
Modern politicians, pundits, and activists like to talk about slavery… a LOT. This is in spite of the fact that slavery no longer exists anywhere under the umbrella of Western Civilization. Instead, they call the prison system “slavery” or the public education system “slavery.” Uh-huh… well, there are still places in Africa (and Asia) where honest-to-gosh slavery is still practiced, in spite of being illegal worldwide. It almost seems like all the people who can’t stop talking about slavery don’t actually know anything about it or its history. The Warners could clear up a lot of things by paying a time-traveling visit to one of the African nations that adapted its extant slavery system for export during the ancient Roman era, the ancient Indian era, or the Islamic era, all of which predated the bugaboo of the Atlantic Slave Trade by centuries. It would be great fun to see a stammering Zimbabwe Chieftain trying to explain how “owning” someone works, or why selling said someone to an Arab was a good idea.
1. Mocking “Prophet” Muhammed
The main reason for the Warners to do a sendup of Muhammed ibn Abdullah is simply the fact that drawing cartoons of him is “forbidden” and, as we’ve seen in France with the Charlie Hebdo incident, really stirs up his fanbase into showing their true colors. Other reasons to mock the man include his pedophilia and the fact that the religion he founded is just a re-skinned rip-off of Catholicism. We all know that, as a merchant, Muhammed traveled across the known world between the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean, witnessing first-hand how different people in different regions lived during the late 6th Century. Not coincidentally, during his early life, Arabia was overrun with inter-tribal conflict, with small familial groups scrabbling to control as much land and wealth as possible. Meanwhile, the Germanic tribes of Catholic Europe were all doing the same thing… yet in Europe there was the overarching presence of the Papacy to keep things (slightly) more civil, which only grew stronger under the influence of Gregory I. Our Boy Muhammed clearly was ambitious enough to think he’d be the perfect Pope of Arabia, only without the whole “fealty to non-Arab foreigners” thing. The best thing the Warners could do would be to pop-in on Muhammed in his “prayer cave,” only to find him poring over a stolen Bible instead of hanging out with Archangel Gabriel, as he alleged.
