The fact that all of this is achieved largely through the use of hand-drawn animation makes it all the more impressive. And occasionally the show will venture far afield, such as dropping a bombastic anime parody on viewers with no warning. There are plenty of catchy, visually enticing musical numbers. Again, the series has hardly reinvented its faux-retro WB animation style, and the switch to digital technology allows the animators to be bolder and more ambitious. While the show sounds as good as it ever did thanks to the return of voice actors Rob Paulsen, Jess Harnell, and Tress MacNeille, it looks quite a bit better.

Thankfully, most of the segments manage to toe that line. The series is at its best when it finds the balance between topical humor and timeless shenanigans. One particularly Russia-heavy segment probably would have been played out even in 1993, with the way it relies on so many stale Cold War stereotypes. Perhaps all the Russian election interference humor seemed topical back in 2018 when the writers were doom-scrolling Twitter for Mueller Report updates, but that material feels passé in post-election 2020. That said, there are some jokes (mostly of the political variety) that feel immediately dated upon arrival. There's an entire segment that seems like a coordinated attack on Quibi, despite that ill-fated streamer only having existed for about 17 minutes in 2020. Some of the gags even feel eerily prescient. The writers tend to devote most of their attention to our vapid, social media-obsessed culture, and that really hasn't changed in the last decade or so. Despite the long production lead time, most of the show's satire manages to hit the mark. But from there, it's pretty much business as usual - the Warners escape their tower and wreak havoc, rinse and repeat. The series even opens with a pitch-perfect parody of the original Jurassic Park, complete with Sam Neill as Alan Grant. The original series was never shy about lampooning contemporary pop culture and political figures, and the revival is much the same. What exactly they've been up to all this time is never really addressed, but the premiere does revolve heavily around the trio getting acquainted with the bizarre landscape of 2018 (the characters break the fourth wall to remind us that was when the scripts were being written).

Play If anything, the series premiere plays that fact to its advantage as it reintroduces the Warner siblings.

Download animaniacs season 1 2020