The image was removed when it was believed to be a poorly drawn picture of Mickey Mouse, causing Ruegger to change the designs somewhat. This was lessened after, in anticipation of the show's release, an image of one of the Animaniacs was plastered over the WB water tower.

This ambiguous but inarguable 'cartoon' aesthetic, as well as the question of their animal nature, is accentuated by them resembling sort of lawsuit-proof versions of Mickey Mouse, and to some extent, Oswald the Rabbit. water tower until they escaped in the '90s. For this reason, they were locked away into the iconic Warner Bros. When the time came to give them their own cartoons, though, said projects were seen as too crazy and inane for the general audience. Their fourth-wall destroying origin story had them created as minor characters for 1920s/30s cartoons. Whereas other characters have become synonymous with companies like Disney, the Animaniacs were literally intended as mascots. Another skit had a doctor attempting to find out what exactly they were, which resulted in the trio noting that what they were was, in fact, cute. One common answer was that they were, in fact, the Warner Brothers, along with an apparently unknown sister. Keep in mind that a recurring gag on The Animaniacs was to have people question what the title characters were. Their official species name, however, is 'Cartoonus Characterus.' This information had actually always been a part of the show's production bible, with the obviously fake Latin word essentially being a 'non-answer' to the characters' origins. Ruegger eventually admitted that their colloquial species name was 'toons,' or cartoon characters. Ironically, they were originally going to be ducks, but it was decided by series creator Tom Ruegger that there were already too many cartoon ducks.

Nothing else about their anatomy is particularly canine or feline, however. Instead of the cotton ball tails of bunnies, they have long, furry tails like a cat or a dog. This idea is muddled, however, with their tails. They also have large feet like a rabbit's, which would seemingly close the book on what type of animals they are.

They have tall, playful ears that stand up like a rabbit's, which is an image accentuated by their pointed buck teeth. The trio's rather questionable genetic ancestry stems from their designs.

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