Drawn by: Walter Carzon and Mike DeCarlo
Pinky is a counter worker at Da Burger. An order is on the counter, with a wrapped sandwich, fries with ketchup, and a drink; they all look vaguely disreputable. Behind him are more burgers waiting to be sold, and a cash register sits to one side. He asks, "Ummm...would you like fries with your comic?" The caption, "Special employment issue!" is across the top.
The Brain has come up with yet another plan to bring the world's populace to its knees: an enormous, remote-controled atomic superball. In order to make the ball, he needs a source of saturated fats, and the local Da Burger restaurant just happens to have enough for his needs. It seems they haven't changed the fat in their deep fryer in ten years, and the FDA will oversee the operation. The Brain plans to take the old grease for his own uses.
The mice walk in to the restaurant, which happens to have a Help Wanted sign in the window. They're hired in short order, and the manager assigns the Brain to the production line and Pinky to the register. The Brain has some difficulty with assembling the components of a burger in the right order, and earns himself a demotion, while Pinky quickly gets promoted to supervisor. The Brain has more trouble dealing with customers, and gets demoted again. He finally decides to kiss up to everyone, and his fortunes rise quickly.
Right about this time, the FDA shows up to change the fat. The manager sends another employee to do it, not wanting to risk his good worker, and the Brain's plan threatens to fall apart. He gets Pinky to demote him again, then goes to get the old fat, but the mop he left on the floor to get himself demoted trips the employee carrying the fat, and it goes flying into the freezer. The cold turns the fat into an atomic superball quickly, and the restaurant is destroyed. The manager fires the Brain, and they go back to their cage to plan for tomorrow night.
The Atomic Superball was a ball with high elasticity, allowing it to bounce higher than other balls, introduced in the late 60s. They can still be found in gum machines everywhere. Roseanne refers to overweight comedienne Roseanne Barr, who is reported to have a nasty temper. I refuse to comment on the realism of the workings of Da Burger...
Pinky is shown with uniform shirt, but no pants, in the title panel. Pinky's nose has no highlight at the top pf page 3. The splotches on the manager's shirt aren't colored in on page 9, unlike the rest of the story. The Da Burger logos on the mice's uniforms are drawn in, and not, with about the same frequency. It's not related to their size, either.Katie Ka-Boom is at the home of her neighbors, there to babysit their son while they go out to dinner. The neighbors rush out, desperate to leave before Katie changes her mind. The son, Alvin, quickly starts giving Katie a hard time, accompanied by his stuffed bear, Bobbs. He calls her a monster from Mars and fights her off with some toys.
As Alvin squirts Katie with a water pistol, she explodes. Alvin thinks that's cool, and asks his parents if Katie can babysit the next time, too...but that's not likely, as she's left the house in her usual shambles.
This story could be titled Katie Ka-Boom Meets Calvin and Hobbes. The parents, and Alvin, are recognizably Calvin and his parents, and the stuffed/alive bear is a good replacement for Hobbes, Calvin's stuffed/alive tiger. If anything, Batic draws Calvin and his family too well: Calvin and Hobbes artist Sam Watterson uses a much sparer style, aiming for artistic effect instead of realism. The plot also echoes a recurring theme in Calvin and Hobbes: Calvin hates having a babysitter, and in one story imagined his babysitter as a creature from Mars. Batic's Katie and her parents are exactly on-model; they could have been taken from one of the cartoons. This story also illustrates something that not even the cartoon series writers adhere to all of the time: In comedy, it's important to know when to take your bow and exit stage left. Kurtin's script gets in, sets itself up, makes its point, and gets out, without stretching it too far. In my (admittedly arrogant) opinion, this is the best Katie Ka-Boom story of the entire Animaniacs canon. Katie and Alvin are watching an Animaniacs cartoon when his parents return home. Alvin's dad looks like he's wearing a mustache in the first panel.The Warners are in Plotz' office after their latest destructive rampage. They try to explain it all away, but Plotz has only one thing to tell them: "You're fired!" There's just one problem: The Warners live at the studio, not work there. Scratchy convinces them they have to go get a job to repay the studio for the damages. They go off to an employment agency, and after listing their qualifications, they're sent out on an emergency assignment, as assistants to a big star.
They arrive at the offices of Dolt Whimsey Studios, and meet their employer. At first, he's dressed in a Carmen Miranda outfit, and Yakko and Wakko do the "Helloooo, nurse!" bit; when he reveals himself, and points out his distinguishing features, they decide he's pop superstar Michael Jackson, and cling to that despite hie protestations to the contrary. He can't understand why they don't know who he is, and finally writes his real name on the insurance form the sibs are trying to get him to sign.
The star goes on to explain the Warners' job: they are to cater to his every whim so he can concentrate on his role in the studio's latest film. The sibs make fun of the whole concept of the film, and the star gets angrier and angrier, finally suggesting that they'll get along if the Warners just play ball with him. They take him literally, and a fly ball knocks him out. After a few more gags at his expense, the star blows his top and locks them in a sound studio. Wakko decides to turn up the air conditioning - or so he thinks. The knob he cranks up is really the volume control for the studio broadcast sound system, and the next armpit noise he makes levels the Whimsey studio, just as he did to the WB studio.
The Warners reply to the star's claim that they should pay the damages by pointing out the insurance form he signed guarantees him all the credit - so he has to pay for the damages. The sibs return to the WB lot as heroes for destroying the competition.
This story is an obvious slam at Disney and its formula musical animatied films. The star is obviously Mickey Mouse, altered just enough to avoid copyright problems. Dolt Whimsey refers to the founder, Walt Disney, and the logo is written in the same cursive style. The film in the story, too, could easily be a Disney film, too. One thing this story does, probably unintentionally, is point out the great similarity in appearance between the Warners and Mickey Mouse. Mickey is drawn here in a style very similar to the Warners, and the differences are few and, for the most part, minor. Mickey's facial expressions are taken straight from Aranda's Warners, as well. (I've been wearing Animaniacs apparel for about two years now on a regular basis. About half of the people who comment on it say that the characters are Mickey Mouse when asked. That ratio is improving; it was over two-thirds when I started...JM) William Shatner does indeed wear hairpieces, usually badly. Michael Jackson, often called "the gloved one", is reportedly difficult to work with. The items mentioned in the second panel on page 24 are all associated with him, as well. The Apocalypso poster on page 26 is a good parody of the poster for Apocalypse Now. The idea of turning the latter into an animated musical is itself mind-boggling. Mickey's comment about Doofy's movie on page 30 refers to Disney's A Goofy Movie. Scratchy is colored the same flesh tone as the other humans in this story. His standard coloration is a good bit redder. Dot's tail is missing in the last panel on page 22. Her brothers' tails are hidden by their body positions, but hers should be visible from that angle.