Brain Snacks is a series of educational interstitials produced by Riverstreet Productions for Kids' WB in 1998. It contains 8 shorts, each featuring educational songs about various subjects, usually with science or multicultural themes. Presumably, the series was produced to meet the guidelines of a 1997 FCC ruling which required each station to air at least three hours of educational programming a week.[note 1] The short series was sponsored by Frito-Lay, a subsidiary of PepsiCo.
As of 2022, the entire series has been archived by Riverstreet's official YouTube channel and collected in a playlist (albeit stretched to 16:9 widescreen).
Description
Throughout the short series, each episode focused on one specific topic. They also featured multiple WB-related brands crossover including Animaniacs (which consisted of Animaniacs and both Pinky and the Brain shows), Looney Tunes (which consisted of the standard Looney Tunes shorts as well as Tiny Toon Adventures, The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, and Space Jam), Histeria!, and the DC Animated Universe (especially Superman: The Animated Series and Batman: The Animated Series/The New Batman Adventures). Much of the original voice cast from these productions reprised their respective roles.
As was common with other WB network promos at the time, much of the character animations are reused from different productions, with some new elements being done by Riverstreet (such as on-screen text and backgrounds).
List of Shorts
| Thumbnail Image | Title | Original Airdate | Season Episode | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Recycle! | 1998 | 1 | |||
| In this short, the subject of recycling is explored. Viewers are, of course, encouraged to recycle. | ||||||
 |
Speed of Sound | 1998 | 2 | |||
| This short dives deep into the speed of sound and how it travels. Viewers also get to see its technological impacts. | ||||||
 |
Satellites | 1998 | 3 | |||
| This short features a look into how satellites are designed and operate. | ||||||
 |
World Dance | 1998 | 4 | |||
| Different dances from around the world are explored in this short. | ||||||
 |
Exercise | 1998 | 5 | |||
| Different exercises are explored in this short that encourages the viewers to stay fit. | ||||||
 |
World of Food | 1998 | 6 | |||
| Different kinds of food from around the world are explored in this short. | ||||||
 |
Gravity | 1998 | 7 | |||
| In this short, we get an up-close and personal look on what exactly gravity is and what it does. Viewers also get to see the painful side of gravity with heavy objects. | ||||||
 |
The Planets | 1998 | 8 | |||
| In this short, the many different kinds of planets are listed. Now why does this seem familiar... | ||||||
Trivia
Gallery
Notes
- ↑ This was previously satirized in the Slappy Squirrel cartoon "Bully for Skippy."