Hallmarks of the series included its music, satirical social commentary, pop culture references, character catchphrases, and innuendo directed at an adult audience.

A revival of the series was announced in January 2018, with a two-season order, to be produced in conjunction with Amblin Entertainment and Warner Bros.

Andrea Romano, the casting and recording director of Animaniacs, said that the Warner siblings functioned to "tie the show together," by appearing in and introducing other characters' segments.

The Warner siblings, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, are three 1930s cartoon stars of an unknown species (one Tom Ruegger named "Cartoonus characterus") that were locked away in the WB Tower until the 1990s, when they escaped.

Pinky and the Brain are two genetically altered anthropomorphic laboratory mice who continuously plot and attempt to take over the world.

[9] Additional principal characters included three anthropomorphic Italian-American pigeons known as The Goodfeathers, Buttons and Mindy, Chicken Boo, Flavio and Marita (The Hip Hippos) and Katie Ka-Boom.

Animation Jean MacCurdy brought director Tom Ruegger, who had successfully led A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, to help develop the concept with Spielberg.

Ruegger pitched the idea to Spielberg of using younger versions of the Looney Tunes characters while capturing the same wackiness of those cartoons, eventually leading into Tiny Toon Adventures.

Ruegger initially brought in Sherri Stoner, who had also contributed to Tiny Toons Adventures, to help expand the series' concept.

Producers Peter Hastings, Sherri Stoner, Rusty Mills, and Rich Arons contributed scripts for many of the episodes and had an active role during group discussions in the writer's room as well.

Stoner helped to recruit most of the remaining writing staff, which included Liz Holzman, Paul Rugg, Deanna Oliver, John McCann, Nicholas Hollander, Charlie Howell, Gordon Bressack, Jeff Kwitny, Earl Kress, Tom Minton, and Randy Rogel.

[11] Hastings, Rugg, Stoner, McCann, Howell, and Bressack were involved in writing sketch comedy[7] while others, including Kress, Minton, and Rogel, came from cartoon backgrounds.

[6][7] The writers and animators of Animaniacs used the experience gained from the previous series to create new characters cast in the mold of Chuck Jones and Tex Avery's creations, following on the back-and-forth of many of the pairings from their classic shorts.

Ruegger created Pinky and the Brain after being inspired by the personalities of two of his Tiny Toon Adventures colleagues, Eddie Fitzgerald and Tom Minton, who worked in the same office.

Ruegger thought of the premise for Pinky and the Brain when wondering what would happen if Minton and Fitzgerald tried to take over the world, and cemented the idea after he modified a caricature of the pair drawn by animator Bruce Timm by adding mice ears and noses.

[11] [16] Deanna Oliver contributed The Goodfeathers scripts and the character Chicken Boo,[7] while Nicholas Hollander based Katie Ka-Boom on his teenage daughter.

Among those that were kept included The Hip Hippos, Rita and Runt, Minerva Mink and Buttons and Mindy, the latter of which due to Spielberg's daughter.

[7] Hastings said that the format of the series had the atmosphere of a sketch comedy show because Animaniacs segments could widely vary in both time and subject,[7] while Stoner described how the Animaniacs writing staff worked well as a team in that writers could consult other writers on how to write or finish a story, as was the case in the episode "The Three Muska-Warners".

[13] Animaniacs featured Rob Paulsen as Yakko, Pinky, and Dr. Otto von Scratchansniff, Tress MacNeille as Dot, Jess Harnell as Wakko, show writer Sherri Stoner as Slappy Squirrel, Maurice LaMarche as the Brain, Squit and the belching segments "The Great Wakkorotti" (Harnell said that he himself is commonly mistaken for the role),[5] and veteran voice actor Frank Welker as Ralph the Security Guard, Thaddeus Plotz and Runt.

[5] Although the outcome was a very expensive show to produce, "the sound sets us apart from everyone else in animation," said Jean MacCurdy, the executive in charge of production for the series.

[5] Senior producer Tom Ruegger said that writers Randy Rogel, Nicholas Hollander, and Deanna Oliver wrote "a lot of music" for the series.

Animaniacs parodied the film A Hard Day's Night and the Three Tenors, references that The New York Times wrote were "appealing to older audiences".

[25] The Warners' personalities were made similar to those of the Marx Brothers and Jerry Lewis, in that they, according to writer Peter Hastings, "wreak havoc" in "serious situations".

[12] Animaniacs made fun of celebrities, major motion pictures, television series for adults (Seinfeld, Beverly Hills 90210 and Friends, among others), television series for children (such as Barney & Friends and Rugrats), and trends in the U.S. One episode even made fun of competing show Power Rangers,[24] and another episode caricatured Animaniacs' own Internet fans.

[38] In November 1993, Animaniacs and Tiny Toon Adventures almost doubled the ratings of rivals Darkwing Duck and Goof Troop among ages 2–11 and 6–11, which are both very important demographics to children's networks.

Producers Steven Spielberg, Tom Ruegger, and Jean MacCurdy wanted "I'm Mad" to be the first of a series of shorts to bring Animaniacs to a wider audience.

Animation World Network reported that Warner Bros. laid off over 100 artists, contributing to the reduced production of the original series.

After Warner Bros. gained distribution rights to the cheaper and successful anime, the network chose to invest less in original programming like Animaniacs.

[39][54] Although children and adults rated Animaniacs: Wakko's Wish highly in test-screenings,[55] Warner Bros. decided to release it direct-to-video, rather than spend money on advertising.

[81][82] According to Wild, Steven Spielberg was heavily involved with bringing the series back and insisting on many of the original voice cast and elements be used for the revival.