Pinky, Elmyra and The Brain are not a disaster. But don't put on your dancing shoes, either.
by Thomas C. Reed
From the attitudes tossed around by some animation fans, you would think Steven Spielberg was advocating spouse abuse. Even before the premiere, if you mentioned Pinky, Elmyra and The Brain you got boos and catcalls. (And as Steve Allen once said, "If I had that much boos I'd be calling a few cats myself.") It would be a disaster, a betrayal of everything created in Pinky and The Brain. And the pollutant, the poison, was Elmyra.
Why?
Both the mice and the pet-abusive girl were created by the same creative teams, both were involved in similar adventures - and both groups of characters are complex and interesting. That complexity was the hallmark of the Warner Brothers stable of characters, and the reason the Amblin/Warner characters work well is the recognition of that complexity.
In fact, you can nail down that complexity to a specific episode for each of them, a moment revealing the depth of these characters. For the lab mice it was the Emmy-winning A Pinky and The Brain Christmas Special, the only original Christmas show of any kind produced in the 1990's. To refresh your memory - although you'll probably see the show repeated soon anyway - Brain tricks Santa Claus into producing mind-controlling toys, with which he will achieve world domination. Meanwhile, Pinky is obsessed with delivering his letter to Santa.
Just as Brain's scheme is about to come to fruition, he reads Pinky's letter - the letter that he has constantly berated Pinky for writing. Pinky asks Santa for nothing - only that Brain receives gifts. Brain is so moved at Pinky's affection for him that he throws away his scheme for world domination, using his mind control only to assure a happy holiday for the world.
That moment clarified what had been only hinted at in the regular series. Beneath Pinky's idiocy lay a loving heart, even for the one who so often abuses him. And beneath Brain's cold intellect and Orson Welles ego laid a soul that appreciated, even envied that loving heart. That complexity moved everyone who saw that special. Every episode of Pinky and the Brain that followed echoed this revelation, to the approval of a growing audience of teens and adults.
A similar revelation happened to Elmyra, although her series of origin, Tiny Toon Adventures, was never intended for an adult audience. Also, she was only a supporting character, most often an antagonist and irritant to Buster and Babs Bunny. But the Warner/Amblin creative team was ambitious and eager to score points against Disney. Or perhaps they were moved by the same spirit as the original Warner Brothers animators; if they were stuck doing kid stuff, they would at least make it amusing to themselves. The high point of TTA and Elmyra's career was the episode Prom-ise Her Anything.
In the episode, prom time at Acme Looniversity has Elmyra simply desiring a date with Montana Max, who intends to dump her for a solo weekend in Rio de Janiero. Buster and Babs see Elmyra patiently, if sadly, waiting at the prom. Even someone like Elmyra doesn't deserve to be dumped, they agree, and the bunnies drag Monty back to the prom.
Monty screams at Elmyra that "you have the intellectual capacity of sponge mold." This devastates the poor girl, who retreats to the sidelines of the prom, heartbroken. Monty tries to put the make on an attractive, and apparently dumb, female - only to be given the identical brush-off, for even a bimbo can see Monty's selfishness. Facing the same emotional devastation, Monty winds up sitting next to Elmyra and apologizing - and her legendary dumbness lets her forgive Monty immediately.
Up to that point, Elmyra had been a one-note character; an irritant to the animal characters in the show, and a target for idiot jokes. The idea that she could feel sorrow, regret and abandonment was inconceivable. But after Prom-ise Her Anything, Elmyra became less of a cliche and a more involving character. She never reached the same level of appeal as the other characters, even though one episode was supposed to be a pilot for a never-sold series, "Elmyra's Family." Still, she was lifted from plot device to a character.
(Incidentally, you'll notice that I've given plot summaries of each show without making value judgments on the animation quality, cleverness of dialog or voice acting - only how they make the plot work. A writing class taught me this trick for evaluating a story. Strip away externals like jokes, scary special effects and your adoration for a particular actor, and you find the foundations of the plot. No matter how weird something like The Addams Family or Buffy, The Vampire Slayer might seem, underneath the details of good shows you find these solid structures - the elements that have served everyone Shakespeare to Spielberg to Chris Carter.)
Given these two groups of appealing characters - the lab mice and the dumb-but-human girl - it was a reasonable conclusion that Elmyra could complement Pinky and Brain, extending the life of their show. Certainly the actors deserved continued paychecks. Reams have been written about the voice actors Maurice LaMarche and Rob Paulsen, whose public appearances have become fan favorites. Cree Summers never got that respect; her only public role was the flighty Southern dorm student in A Different World, and the irony of this black actress voicing a dippy Caucasian toon was lost on everyone.
So, is this show worthy? Sadly...not yet. I've seen the first few episodes, and it looks like the writers have retreated to familiar ground. Elmyra is nothing more than the Terror of Tiny Toons and is mostly a plot complication for the mice, who are still driven towards world-domination schemes.
I still hold out hope that the writers will finally understand the characters and use them. Brain might feel some sympathy for Elmyra - although dumb and insensitive to other's pain, she is a living being. She might change to reveal that life. Just a little. And Brain might get some tips from surprise guest stars - say, Buster and Babs - since they have survived Elmyra and he hasn't. (Or maybe Brain might be too proud to accept their advice - which would also be a lot of fun.)
Unless these kind of episodes appear soon - which means they'd have to be in the can already - this series will be canceled at the end of this season. And I think that's a shame. Pinky, Elmyra and The Brain is a far better shown than Warner's other new series, Histeria! There is still magic in these characters - but Spielberg and his directors have to seek out that magic, not just repeat their old plans for trying to take over the cartoon world.
Thomas E. Reed is a television engineer in Orlando, Florida. He'd like to remind everyone to back up everything on their hard drives. His nearly indestructible Mac 6100/66 blew its hard drive a while ago, and lost everything, including all his previous columns. And he discovered that he might recover all that stuff by sending the drive to a data recovery service - to the tune of $850-1500. Sadder but wiser, he now advises you to be wiser rather than sadder. Share your sympathies with him at tomreed@sundial.net.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
Page last updated 11/1/1998
This web site was built by Catseye Creative Services, Ink.