Histeria!
| Histeria! | |
|---|---|
 The cast of Histeria! sings out their theme song. |
|
| Format | Animated series |
| Created by | Tom Ruegger |
| Starring | Frank Welker Tress MacNeille Jeff Bennett Laraine Newman Luke Ruegger Cody Ruegger Nathan Ruegger Maurice LaMarche Billy West |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| No. of episodes | 52 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Kids' WB |
| Original run | September 14, 1998 – October 1, 2001 |
Histeria! was an animated television series of the late-1990s, created by Tom Ruegger (who also created Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, and Pinky and the Brain) at Warner Bros. Animation. Unlike other similar shows by Warner Bros., Histeria!'s purpose was not simply to entertain, but to also attempt to teach history as well, a residual effect of the network having to meet the FCC's recently implemented educational/informational requirements. A regular cast of characters would visit a different period or event in history and try to explain the event using humor.
One brief segment of the show featured a sequence in which many of the characters performed a carol asking their audience to please watch the show or it would be cancelled (to a beat reminiscent of the 1970s Coca-Cola commercial "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing").
Histeria! aired on Kids' WB from 1998 to 2001. More recently, it has been in reruns on Toontopia TV (part of In2TV), first from March to July 2006, and then returning in October. As of May 2007, it is currently the only one of Kids' WB's classic comedy shows still broadcast there. All 52 episodes are available, but no DVD set has yet been announced.
Histeria! may have been influenced by 1978 French TV series Il était une fois l'homme (Once Upon a Time... Man). The French series does not feature time travel. Instead, the familiar series cast reappears as the contemporary figures of every historical time.
Characters
Episodes
- Inventors Hall of Fame - Part I
- Inventors Hall of Fame - Part II
- The U.S. Civil War - Part I
- The Attack of the Vikings
- The Wild West
- The American Revolution - Part I
- More Explorers
- The Know-It-Alls
- The Renaissance
- The U.S. Civil War - Part II
- Really Oldies But Goodies
- The American Revolution - Part II
- A Blast from the Past
- China
- Tribute to Tyrants
- The Montezuma Show
- Loud Kiddington's Ancient History
- Great Heroes of France
- The Terrible Tudors
- The Wheel of History
- When Time Collides
- Around the World in a Daze
- Histeria Satellite TV
- General Sherman's Campsite
- Return to Rome
- Megalomaniacs1
- The Russian Revolution
- The Thomas Jefferson Program
- Hooray For Presidents
- The Legion of Super Writers
- Return to China
- Writers of the Purple Prose
- History Of Flight
- Presidential People
- Histeria Around the World I
- When America Was Young
- Super Amazing Constitutions
- Better Living Through Science
- The Dawn of Time
- Music
- World War II
- The Teddy Roosevelt Show
- Communuts!
- Histeria Around the World II
- Americana
- 20th Century Presidents
- The French Revolution
- North America
- Histeria Goes to the Moon
- Heroes of Truth & Justice
- Euro-Mania
- Big Fat Baby Theatre
1 - Two versions of this episode exist: a sketch about Custer's Last Stand (in which the kids mistakenly believe he's running a custard stand) replaced a sketch depicting the Spanish Inquisition as a game show called "Convert or Die" after a complaint from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, who claimed the sketch "[taught] children to reject Catholicism". It has since been restored on In2TV.
Cameos and cultural references
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An integral part of the program was its use of popular culture to demonstrate historical events. Among the numerous pop culture references the show used during its run:
- The Looney Tunes characters made occasional cameos:
- Bugs Bunny is brought onto a talk show hosted by Miss Information to deliver his famous line to Doc Holiday. He also makes a cameo in a "hat shop" sketch featuring Abe Lincoln, and he also makes an even briefer cameo in "The Invasion Song", alongside the hillbilles from the Looney Tunes short "Hillbilly Hare".
- During a D-Day interview with Dwight D. Eisenhower (Whom had been moved to Omaha Beach for the interview), Daffy Duck takes offense to Loud Kiddington's repeated calls to take cover (i.e.: "DUCK!").
- Elmer Fudd portrays Gutzon Borglum (the man who sculpted Mount Rushmore).
- Porky Pig and Foghorn Leghorn make a cameo appearance in "The Dawn of Time" (a cow then falls on the latter, ala Earthworm Jim), and in the same sketch, the Tasmanian Devil dons a cow suit to play the role of the Aurochs. Also in that episode, the leprechauns who antagonized Porky in the Chuck Jones short "Wearing of the Grin" made a cameo appearance (although one was miscolored).
- An episode spoofs the Justice League with FDR as Batman and Truman, played by Loud Kiddington as Robin. Eleanor Roosevelt appeared as Wonder Woman, Winston Churchill as Superman. Joseph Stalin appears as the Incredible Hulk even though he is a Marvel character. The Freedom League theme has the same tune as the Spider-Man telvision show theme.
- The Battle of Yorktown is covered like the Super Bowl, including commentary by John Madden.
- Washington's crossing of the Delaware is told as a poem to the
tune of
The Night Before Christmas - In the episode The Russian Revolution Pepper Mills confused Lenin with John Lennon, a famous singer and Beatle, and made a joke about another Beatle, Ringo Starr. Additionally, Karl Marx is portrayed as a lampoon of Groucho Marx.
- A song about William Howard Taft is sung to the tune of the Theme from Shaft.
- A musical number about Theodore Roosevelt and his anti-trust campaign was sung to the theme of Ghostbusters. Roosevelt was depicted as a 'Trust-Buster' (complete with tan flight suit and proton pack) busting various analogies for trusts, including giant piggy banks.
- In "The Wild West", Father Time is shown watching Animaniacs on TV. Also, in "Really Oldies But Goodies", the kids sing to the Animaniacs theme tune when introducing Alexander the Great, and the Pinky and the Brain theme music can be heard during an offscreen mummification, specifically at the point mentioning the removal of the brain.
- The show's theme music is the march, Manhattan Beach, by John Philip Sousa.
- Occasionally, the show's theme song is replaced by a parody of the theme song to another television show. Among those are the intros to Saturday Night Live, The Addams Family, The Simpsons and even Huckleberry Hound.
- Loud Kiddington once spoofed Green Eggs and Ham with George H. W. Bush. In this sketch, Loud chases Bush with a plate a broccoli while trying to convince him to eat it (Bush: "I do not like that broccoli, now go away and let me be!").
- In "The Renaissance" episode, Leonardo da Vinci spoofs the 1960s Batman series under the alias "Renaissance Man".
- At the end of a sketch debating their existence, King Arthur, Sir Lancelot, and Sir Galahad opt to retreat, shouting out "Run away!" like in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Also, in the Salem Witch Trials sketch in "When America Was Young", the characters paraphrase a portion of the scene from Holy Grail where a woman is accused of being a witch.
- A sketch based on the Boston Tea Party borrows wholesale from the Cheese Shop sketch from an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. In this sketch, a British soldier approaches an American running a "tea stand" in front of Boston Harbor, and every time the soldier asks if they have a particular kind of tea, an off-screen splash sound-effect is heard and the American running the "stand" says that they're "out" of it, meaning it has just been dumped into the Harbor.
- In "Return to China", at the end of the Great Wall sketch, when the man freaks out when he sees the kids, he quotes some sayings from Mr. Director from Animaniacs.
- In "The Russian Revolution", Charlie Chaplin makes a brief cameo appearance in the black and white film example as his signature character The Tramp. However, he is holding a bumbershoot instead of a cane.
- In a bit about Lewis and Clark, Clark Kent makes an appearance as Clark, and the character of Lewis is modeled after comedian Jerry Lewis.
Airing
- USA
- Kids WB! (1998-2001)
- UK
- CBBC (2000-2002)
- Boomerang (UK) (2008-TBA)
See also
External links
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