The Animaniacs are back, and you can tell from the show’s open that things are going to be at least a little different.

(Former President) Bill Clinton no longer plays the sax in the show’s catchy intro lyrics (though the line about “baloney in their slacks” remains intact) and the revamped theme song promises the show will be “gender-balanced, pronoun-neutral and ethnically-diverse.” For the most part the show delivers on that. (A scene set in a U.S. Senate hearing has an audience composed of only old white men, which is only nearly the case in real life.)

Returning for a 13-episode reboot on Hulu, the Animaniacs are the still self-referential characters they were during the original 1993-98 run of the show, claiming “we did meta first.” There’s no shortage of jokes about the show cashing in on the nostalgia/reboot trend, though at Hulu’s expense, not their own.

The Warner Brothers (and sister Dot) remain sarcastic trouble-makers with the same targets: idiots caught up in their own pomposity who need to be taken down a peg or three. There’s an arrogant Olympic athlete and Odysseus, played as a smug adventurer – among others – who get their egos checked with extreme sarcasm (and a smidge of cartoon violence) by the Warners.

In the first episode, the Warners confess their jokes were written in 2018 and may not be current, but they are topical. A certain orange-hued president is represented more than once, and there’s a voting rights protest scene involving a horde of Looney Toons and WB favorites that feels as fresh as this month. There’s no pandemic, um, humor in the episodes we reviewed, so that may be something they save for season two, which is definitely a go.

The character of Dot is certainly more politically aware; her introduction in the open was changed from “Dot is cute” to “Dot has wit” and she seems to have a feminist edge that wasn’t as sharp back in the 1990s. But perhaps the political stakes were lower 25 years ago; what went on in Washington was played for laughs then but must be taken more seriously now.

There is an abundance of humor for grown-ups in a show ostensibly for kids – for example, in the bit with Odysseus, he has prominent pubic hair(!) It’s hard to imagine kids today getting a thrill out of stories about suffragettes or seeing Magilla Gorilla and Huckleberry Hound back from wherever they have been for the last two decades, but maybe that was never the goal. After all, kids don’t pay for Hulu subscriptions.

Pinky and the Brain return as well, still trying unsuccessfully to take over the world. Here the differences of 25+ years ago vs. today are less stark: aside from the omnipresence of social media in nearly every story, the stories adhere to the same formula: the inept and bumbling Pinky is the downfall of the Brain’s every good idea.

There should be something for all to enjoy here, though, whether you are in it for the throwback vibes or prefer to get your laughs from the topical subject matter. The Animaniacs remain a constant: sarcastic, bombastic and zany to the max.

Did you enjoy the rebooted Animaniacs? Let us know in the comments.