Histeria! Totally Explained

Everything about Histeria totally explained

Histeria! is an American animated television series of the late-1990s, created by Tom Ruegger (who also created Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, Freakazoid, and Road Rovers) at Warner Bros. Animation. Unlike other similar shows by Warner Bros., Histeria!'s purpose wasn't simply to entertain, but to also attempt to teach history as well, a residual effect of the network having to meet the FCC's recently implemented educational/informational requirements. A regular cast of characters would visit a different period or event in history and explain the event in a humorous skit or short segment. Frequently things were made into songs, historical figures had celebrity personalities, and various segments parodied contemporary entertainment. Histeria! aired on Kids' WB from 1998 to 2001. More recently, it has been in reruns on Toontopia TV (part of In2TV), first from March to July 2006, and then returning in October. As of May 2007, it's currently the only one of Kids' WB's classic comedy shows still broadcast there. All 52 episodes are available, but no DVD set has yet been announced. Histeria! may have been influenced by 1978 French TV series Il était une fois l'homme (Once Upon a Time... Man). The French series featured the familiar series cast reappears as the contemporary figures of every historical time. Histeria! has since became a cult favorite, gaining a modest fandom; fan-creations can be found on the Internet and at fansites.

Characters

Episodes

Inventors Hall of Fame - Part I
Inventors Hall of Fame - Part II
The U.S. Civil War - Part I
The Attack of the Vikings
The Wild West
The American Revolution - Part I
More Explorers
The Know-It-Alls
The Renaissance
The U.S. Civil War - Part II
Really Oldies But Goodies
The American Revolution - Part II
A Blast from the Past
China
Tribute to Tyrants
The Montezuma Show
Loud Kiddington's Ancient History
Great Heroes of France
The Terrible Tudors
The Wheel of History
When Time Collides
Around the World in a Daze
Histeria Satellite TV
General Sherman's Campsite
Return to Rome
Megalomaniacs¹
The Russian Revolution
The Thomas Jefferson Program
Hooray For Presidents
The Legion of Super Writers
Return to China
Writers of the Purple Prose
History Of Flight
Presidential People
Histeria Around the World I
When America Was Young
Super Amazing Constitutions
Better Living Through Science
The Dawn of Time
Music
World War II
The Teddy Roosevelt Show
Communuts!
Histeria Around the World II
Americana
20th Century Presidents
The French Revolution
North America
Histeria Goes to the Moon
Heroes of Truth & Justice
Euro-Mania
Big Fat Baby Theatre

¹ - Two versions of this episode exist: a sketch about Custer's Last Stand (in which the kids mistakenly believe he's running a custard stand) replaced a sketch depicting the Spanish Inquisition as a game show called "Convert or Die" after a complaint from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, who claimed the sketch "[taught] children to reject Catholicism". It has since been restored on In2TV.

Cameos and cultural references

An integral part of the program was its use of popular culture to demonstrate historical events. Among the numerous pop culture references the show used during its run:

The Looney Tunes characters made occasional cameos:

Bugs Bunny is brought onto a talk show hosted by Miss Information to deliver his famous line to Doc Holiday. He also makes a cameo in a "hat shop" sketch featuring Abe Lincoln, and he also makes an even briefer cameo in "The Invasion Song", alongside the hillbilles from the Looney Tunes short "Hillbilly Hare".
During a D-Day interview with Dwight D. Eisenhower (Whom had been moved to Omaha Beach for the interview), Daffy Duck takes offense to Loud Kiddington's repeated calls to take cover (for example: "DUCK!").
Elmer Fudd portrays Gutzon Borglum (the man who sculpted Mount Rushmore).
Porky Pig and Foghorn Leghorn make a cameo appearance in "The Dawn of Time" (a cow then falls on the latter, ala Earthworm Jim), and in the same sketch, the Tasmanian Devil dons a cow suit to play the role of the Aurochs. Also in that episode, the leprechauns who antagonized Porky in the Chuck Jones short "Wearing of the Grin" made a cameo appearance (although one was miscolored).

In "The Wild West", Father Time is shown watching Animaniacs on TV. Also, in "Really Oldies But Goodies", the kids sing to the Animaniacs theme tune when introducing Alexander the Great, and the Pinky and the Brain theme music can be heard during an offscreen mummification, specifically at the point mentioning the removal of the brain.

An episode spoofs the Justice League with Franklin D. Roosevelt as Batman and Truman, played by Loud Kiddington as Robin. Eleanor Roosevelt appeared as Wonder Woman, Winston Churchill as Superman. Joseph Stalin appears as the Incredible Hulk even though he's a Marvel character. The Freedom League theme has the same tune as the Spider-Man television show theme.

Superman makes cameo appearances in "The Inventors Hall of Fame - Part 2" and "When Time Collides!" (In the former, his "S" emblem mistakenly has an "F" on it, though one fan commented that it may have been a reference to Freakazoid.)

The Battle of Yorktown is covered like the Super Bowl, including commentary by John Madden.

Washington's crossing of the Delaware is told as a poem to the tune of The Night Before Christmas

In the episode The Russian Revolution Pepper Mills confused Lenin with John Lennon, a famous singer and Beatle, and made a joke about another Beatle, Ringo Starr. Additionally, Karl Marx is portrayed as a lampoon of Groucho Marx.

A song about William Howard Taft is sung to the tune of the Theme from Shaft.

The "Communuts" song is a parody of "Whatever It Is, I'm Against It" from Horse Feathers.

A musical number about Theodore Roosevelt and his anti-trust campaign was sung to the theme of Ghostbusters. Roosevelt was depicted as a 'Trust-Buster' (complete with tan flight suit and proton pack) busting various analogies for trusts, including giant piggy banks.

The show's theme music is the march, Manhattan Beach, by John Philip Sousa.

Occasionally, the show's theme song is replaced by a parody of the theme song to another television show. Among those are the intros to Saturday Night Live, The Addams Family, The Simpsons and Mr. Ed.

Loud Kiddington once spoofed Green Eggs and Ham with George H. W. Bush. In this sketch, Loud chases Bush with a plate a broccoli while trying to convince him to eat it (Bush: "I don't like that broccoli, now go away and let me be!").

In "The Renaissance" episode, Leonardo da Vinci spoofs the 1960s Batman series under the alias "Renaissance Man".

At the end of a sketch debating their existence, King Arthur, Sir Lancelot, and Sir Galahad opt to retreat, shouting out "Run away!" like in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Also, in the Salem Witch Trials sketch in "When America Was Young", the characters paraphrase a portion of the scene from Holy Grail where a woman is accused of being a witch.

A sketch based on the Boston Tea Party borrows wholesale from the Cheese Shop sketch from an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. In this sketch, a British soldier approaches an American running a "tea stand" in front of Boston Harbor, and every time the soldier asks if they've a particular kind of tea, an off-screen splash sound-effect is heard and the American running the "stand" says that they're "out" of it, meaning it has just been dumped into the Harbor.

In "Return to China", at the end of the Great Wall sketch, when the man freaks out when he sees the kids, he quotes some sayings from Mr. Director from Animaniacs.

In "The Russian Revolution", Charlie Chaplin makes a brief cameo appearance in the black and white film example as his signature character The Tramp. However, he's holding a bumbershoot instead of a cane.

In a bit about Lewis and Clark, Clark Kent makes an appearance as Clark, and the character of Lewis is modeled after comedian Jerry Lewis. In the same episode, the film Deliverance is also parodied.

In "The American Revolution of Abe Lincoln," Abraham Lincoln spoofs the show Seinfield called Abe-Feld with Allan Pinkerton as Cosmo Kramer, George B. McClellan as George Costanza, and Jefferson Davis as Newman.

In "Hooray for Presidents", the song about Bill Clinton and how he became president was to the theme of The Beverly Hillbillies(Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton also appeared). In the same episode, there was a sketch about the Lincoln Bedroom that had several celebrity cameos from Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand, Bill Cosby, Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump, Christopher Walken, Clint Eastwood, Ted Turner, and Bill Clinton.

The episode "General Sherman's Campsite" is a parody of Pee-Wee's Playhouse.

Larry King Live was spoofed as Barry Ding Live, complete with appearances by Kato Kaelin.Further Information

Get more info on 'Histeria'.

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