Pinky and the Brain: May 1997

Cover

Drawn by: Walter Carzon and Mike DeCarlo

Pinky, as the Sorcerer's Apprentice from Fantasia. He's standing on a rocky outcropping, gesturing as the waves crash around him. He's holding a vacuum cleaner in one hand, and his hat has cheese on it instead of the stars and moons of the original.

Narftasia

Credits

• Writer: Jesse Leon McCann
• Penciller: Walter Carzon
• Inker: Mike DeCarlo
• Letterer: John Costanza
• Colorist: Demetrius Bassoukos

Synopsis

The Brain is getting ready for a date. As he gets dressed, Pinky rushes up with his latest purchase: a Narftasia magic spells pillowbook. He is certain that it will help take over the world, but the Brain isn't interested in anything but his date. He uses his Cheesa card to escape the cage, and leaves, telling Pinky that if he'll mop the cage, he'll buy him a corn dog when he returns.

Pinky begins mopping, but quickly realizes that what the Brain really wants is world conquest. He decides to take over the world for him and present it to him on his return. He puls a plan from the Brain's files, and orders the essential component: a billion west-pointing compasses. The rest of the plan requires that all of the world's water be moved to the Atlantic Ocean. After a bit of typically Pinkyish thought, he arrives at the conclusion that his spellbook will help out, and so he finds a spell to move an ocean. It requires moving water from one well to another by using a bucket. Pinky starts, but is soon distracted, so he enchants a vacum cleaner to help out - but it, too, is soon distracted. Pinky tries another spell, ordering the vacuum to keep working in case he fails to get the needed ingredients.

Pinky gets the ingredients he needs from wild and magical places: a baby dancing cactus from its family, a lizard's scale from a giant dragon that pounds him flat, pastoral grapes from the Elysian Fields, a shoe from a dancing stork (but not before Marita Hippo lands on him), and finally one of Batman's nose hairs. He returns to the cage to find the vacuum cleaner has messed up in its job and plugged the well; by the time he gets things straightened out, he's flooded the cage. Pinky makes all of the water go away just as the Brain returns in disgrace from his date: it seems his Cheesa card was way over its limit because someone charged a billion west-pointing compasses to it. The Brain decides to try to take over the world, in hopes of impressing Billie again.

Did You Notice...

• The title, and at least some of the plot, refer to the classic Disney animated film Fantasia. The most famous sequence involves Mickey Mouse, who tries to use magic to perform his assigned task of moving water from point A to point B, with results similar to the ones Pinky gets here. (The scene on the cover is also from this sequence.) There are also dancing storks and hippos, and many other fanciful images, throughout the film.
• The "Do not remove this tag" tag is a standard feature of mattresses and pillows; used to carry safety information, it actually is only not supposed to be removed by anyone except the final purchaser.
• Billie is the Brain's love interest in the cartoon The World Can Wait, in Animaniacs episode 54.
• The Cheesa credit card carries the slogan "Don't leave your hole without it!", although that refers to American Express's slogan - and the Cheesa name and bit about "and they don't take Parmesan Express!" refer to Visa's marketing.
• Names on the Brain's speed dialer: movie producers (Steven) Spielberg and (Robert) Zemeckis, Disney CEO (Michael) Eisner, WBWP assistant editors (Connie) Baldwin and (Peter) Tumminello...and some unknown named Maynard. (Seriously...thanks, guys. It's nice to be noticed...JM)
• The sequence where Pinky talks to himself as the Brain is downright hilarious.
• Pinky's distraction, and the vacuum's, is an episode of the Fox TV drama Melrose Place.
• "Edsel, 8 track, Betamax tapes" all refer to things that were less than commercially successful.
• The animal feeding Pinky the pastoral grapes has the head of his girlfriend, Phar Fignewton.
• Pinky is about the only person who could pluck Batman's nose hair and get away with it.

Technical nits

• Billie is rather seriously miscolored on page 2. Her coloring in The World Can Wait is the same as Pinky's.
• The mirror-image Pinkys on page 4 are all correct except for the first: the thumb is on different sides of the hand on top of his head.
• If those are centaurs on page 11, their lower bodies should be those of horses, not sheep. Then again, given the fanciful nature of the scene, who knows?

The Final Narf

Credits

• Writer: Shaun McLaughlin
• Penciller: Walter Carzon
• Inker: Mike DeCarlo
• Letterer: John Costanza
• Colorist: Demetrius Bassoukos

Synopsis

The mice are in their cage, in the home of a Mr. Holmes. The Brain has discovered a common thread to his failure to take over the world: Snowball. They leave the cage quickly, and go to a pub, The Greasy Bacon, where they locate the hamster who wants to take over the world. The Brain confronts him, and Snowball has his henchman get rid of them while he makes his getaway. As the police drag away Holmes' enemy, the Brain figures out where Snowball went, and barely manages to make it onto his train to Switzerland.

The train's conductor discovers the two stowaways, and puts them to work putting coal into the train's engine, while Snowball and his henchman ride in comfort. They all disembark in Switzerland, the mice follow Snowball's carriage on foot the 20 miles to the inn where he is staying. They get past the henchman who is standing guard and go into Snowball's room - just in time to be chased right back out by the innkeeper's cat, who wakes up the henchman in the process. They barely make their escape, and spend the night in a tree.

Snowball and his henchman leave the inn and climb to a mountainside lair, where his treasure is stored. As he outlines his plans for global domination, he's interrupted by the Brain, who wants one more confrontation. The two rodents fight, and roll around on the ground toward the edge of a cliff. They agree that neither one will let the other take over the world, and so fall off the cliff together, seemingly to their deaths.

As Pinky is writing the last chapter of the story, both the Brain and Snowball surface in the river below. Pinky helps the Brain out of the water, and they go off to take over the world all over again - before Snowball.

Did You Notice...

• This story follows the final Sherlock Holmes story, The Final Problem, quite closely, even ignoring the Holmes bits. Pinky is Dr. Watson to the Brain's Holmes, although Watson is a good deal smarter than Pinky ever thought of being. The Brain refers to two other Holmes stories, The Five Orange Pips and The Adventure of the Six Napoleons. The bit about revising the story, at the end, also refers to The Final Problem: it ends as Holmes and Moriarty fall over the edge of the cliff. (EC)
• Snowball has been seen twice in the cartoon series as of this writing, in the cartoons Snowball in Pinky and the Brain episode 8, and Welcome to the Jungle, in episode 20. He is voiced by Roddy MacDowall, who lends the character a definitely sinister quality.
• Snowball is also, as Pinky points out, the name of a snack cake, and Sara Lee is a (competing) brand of frozen desserts.
• Switzerland is indeed known for chocolate and clocks, though I don't think they've managed to combine the two.

Technical nits

• Pinky magically gets his pants back on page 31, after losing them earlier in the story, and then loses them again on the next page. Similarly, Snowball puts his coat back on in the middle of his fight with the Brain, and Pinky starts out with a regular necktie, but has a bowtie on by the second page.