So far away, but still so near

It's time for (some pointless trivia about) Animaniacs!

Animaniacs! (yes, the exclamation point is part of the title) was initially conceived as a spin-off to Tiny Toon Adventures called Plucky Duck Adventures, starring Plucky Duck, the character from the aforementioned show, before it was decided to make it into an original show instead.

When starting out, the main characters were originally three green duck brothers (similar in design to Plucky Duck). There was Yakky, the talkative one who wore a bow-tie, Smakky, the ill-tempered and violent one who always carried a large mallet, and Wakky, the eccentric and weird one. As the development process continued, a fourth, female duck (who was not named in concept art) was introduced. After their designs changed from ducks to anthropomorphic dogs, the characters morphed into what they are now. Yakky essentially became Yakko, with the only change being swapping the bow tie for a pair of brown slacks. Wakko inherited Wakky's personality and Smakky's appearance, with Smakky ultimately being dropped as a character. The fourth female duck obviously became Dot.

Rob Paulsen (voice of Yakko) recorded the entire "Nations of the World" song in one take. Even to this day, he still remembers the words to it and has often sung it at conventions on request.

However, the song itself contains quite a few inaccuracies. (Taken from this video:)

• First, note that "nation" is not synonymous with "country". A nation is defined as a country that is either a member or a non-member observer of the United Nations.
• "Caribbean" actually refers to the region comprising the Caribbean Sea and the many island nations within it, as well as some which border the North Atlantic.
• Greenland is a constituent country of Denmark.
• Puerto Rico is a United States territory.
• Bermuda is a British overseas territory.
• "Bahamas" is technically "The Bahamas".
• Tobago is actually one of two islands making up the nation of Trinidad and Tobago. Also, Trinidad completely dwarfs it in both size and population.
• San Juan is a city, specifically the capital of Puerto Rico.
• French Guiana is a department of France.
• Guam is another United States territory.
• Yakko says "Germany, now one piece". Germany had officially been in one piece since October 3, 1990, three years before this song came out.
• Czechoslovakia is now divided between Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
• Scotland is a country, but not a nation in its own right, being part of the United Kingdom alongside England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
• Weirdly, "Russia" here seems to cover the entire former USSR, which had dissolved two years before this song came out.
• Yakko mentions "both Yemens", referring to the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen and the Yemen Arab Republic, even though Yemen had also been in one piece for three years by the time this song came out. Their unification took place on May 22, 1990, nearly four and a half months before Germany.
• As mentioned before, England is a country, but part of the United Kingdom, not a nation in its own right. Also, judging by what lights up on the map, Yakko is using "England" to refer to the entire island of Great Britain, which in fact also contains Wales and the aforementioned Scotland.
• Burma is now known as Myanmar.
• Kampuchea is the name given to Cambodia between 1975 and 1989.
• Asia is a continent.
• Korea has been divided between the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea since the 1950s. Both of these light up on the map, so Yakko is erroneously referring to both of them jointly as just "Korea".
• Tibet is an autonomous region of China.
• "The Philippine Islands" is a correct way of referring to the islands themselves, but the nation is just technically called "the Philippines".
• While Taiwan has de facto independence, it's only been recognised by 22 countries and PRC still claims sovereignty over it.
• "New Guinea" is technically "Papua New Guinea".
• Sumatra is part of Indonesia.
• Borneo is an island - the largest in Asia, in fact - and it has three nations on it, those being Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.
• "Gambia" is technically "The Gambia".
• Yakko says "The Spanish Sahara is gone". At the time of this song airing, the Spanish Sahara had been gone for about 18 years. It's now disputed territory between Morocco and the Sahrawi Republic.
• Algiers is the capital city of Algeria.
• Dahomey is the former name for Benin.
• Zaire is now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• Maore is another name for Mayotte, which is a department of France like French Guiana.
• "Cayman" is technically the Cayman Islands, also a British overseas territory.
• Hong Kong was under British control at the time of the song's release and is now a special administrative region of China.
• Abu Dhabi is one of the seven United Arab Emirates, though to Yakko's credit it is the largest.
• Yugoslavia had mostly broken up by the time this song came out and now no longer exists.
• Crete is part of Greece.
• Transylvania is a region of Romania.
• Palestine was not recognised as a state at the time of the song's release, but 139 UN member states do now recognise it and in 2012 it was granted the status of "non-member observer state" by the UN, which effectively amounts to de facto recognition of statehood.
• An "updated" version of the song was written years later, with an extra verse to cover all the countries that came into existence since the song was originally written.

Of the three main characters, the most difficult to find a voice for was Wakko. Everyone who auditioned for the part would do an over-the-top, "wacky" voice for the character, which Tom Ruegger eventually got tired of hearing. Thankfully, then Jess Harnell came along. For his audition, he did impressions of each of the four Beatles individually, and the producers liked his Ringo Starr impression best, so that became the voice for Wakko.

The character of Minerva Mink was only featured in two shorts before being scrapped due to being too sexualised a character for a children's show. Her appearance is based on Marilyn Monroe, and her name was originally going to be Marilyn.

Skippy Squirrel is voiced by Nathan Ruegger, the nephew of show creator Tom Ruegger.

The concept of Slappy Squirrel being an old and jaded cartoon star came from a joke that was made to Sherri Stoner, series writer and creator and voice of Slappy. At the time, Sherri was a very well-known cartoon writer, and some of the other writers joked that she would be working on these cartoons even when she was old, which inspired her to come up with the idea of Slappy.

The episode "One Flew over the Cuckoo Clock" was based on Tom Ruegger's own personal experiences of visiting his grandmother in a nursing home as she was suffering from dementia. It's possibly the darkest of all Animaniacs! episodes.

Many of the nitpicks mentioned in the "Please Please Please Get a Life Foundation" short were taken verbatim from an actual reference guide called the Cultural Reference Guide for Animaniacs. The show's writers emailed the writers of the reference guide to ask for permission to use their material. The members of the newsgroup that wrote the guide were invited to see the premiere of the short, and at the premiere, one of them pointed out an inaccuracy in the quoting of one of the nitpicks, from memory. This was met with incredulity by the staffers and no surprise at all by the fans.

The opening theme contains the line "While Bill Clinton plays the sax". In the brief period where it was looking unlikely that Bill Clinton would serve a second term (due to the infamous blowjob scandal), this line was changed to "We pay tons of income tax".

The character of Buddy who appears in the Warners 65th Anniversary Special was actually a real cartoon character created in 1933, and his cartoons were infamous even back then for being very boring.