Magic Time/The Brain's Apprentice is the 94th episode of the original Animaniacs, and the 4th episode of the show's 5th season. It originally premiered in its completed form on May 9, 1998 (See below).
The Dover Boys (from the Looney Tunes short of the same name) appear to insult Schnitzel and Floyd in song, as they did with Daniel Boone in "Frontier Slappy."
At the end, the act who replaces the magicians is a parody of entertainer Don Rickles named Ron Pickles.
This cartoon takes cues from the Fantasia version of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," which starred Mickey Mouse.
The Pinky and The Brain Comics also parodied Fantasia in the Issue #11 comic "Narftasia". The comic has some similarities with "The Brain's Apprentice", such as Pinky in the role of the apprentice and Brain feeling sad at the end of the story. But the comic has some drastic differences, such as the inclusion of dialogue, references to the other Fantasia segments, and Brain regaining his confidence thanks to Pinky's comforting words. The comic was published in May of 1997, six months before "The Brain's Apprentice" first premiered on television.
This is the final Pinky and the Brain short created for the original run of Animaniacs. The mice would later star in cartoons in the Animaniacs reboot.
The only Pinky and the Brain short to have no dialogue in it, with the exception of the garbled gibberish spoken by Wolf Spritzer.
This cartoon marks one of the closest instances the mice have come to achieving world domination.
Spike Brandt returned to StarToons to provide some animation for this cartoon (particularly the scenes of Brain returning to the lab and later walking back to the machine).
Unlike other 90's-Pinky and the Brain cartoons, the US president character is not the usual Bill Clinton caricature. Instead, a more generic character is used to fill the president role. He is also a caricature of actor Michael Douglas.
The news anchor who shakes the president's hand is a caricature of StarToons animator Jon McClenahan.
Comparison of how the episode looks on different outlets
"The Brain's Apprentice" first aired on November 1, 1997; with "Hercule Yakko" and bothparts of "Punchline" under "Episode 94A" of the Re-ArrangedAnimaniacs episode listing. The full half-hour would later debut in its regular form on May 9, 1998.[1]
As a result of the finished half-hour airing a few months later following much of season 5, some listings such as Hulu consider this to be episode 98.
Like other season 5 episodes, the picture quality of this episode is slightly distorted and cropped on Hulu.
Soundtrack
Over the Waves by Juventino Rosas
We're in the Money by Harry Warren
The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze by Alfred Lee and Gaston Lyle
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