Histeria!

Warner Bros' Histeria! was one of several shows created in part as a result of the FCC deciding in 1996 to start enforcing the 1990 Children's Television Act that required a certain percentage of "informative" and "educational" programs; it premiered on Kids' WB! in September 1998. But having come from the creators of Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs, this show, which centered on comedic sketches loosely based on historical events and topics, was actually pretty much the best show to come out of the CTA. Unfortunately, probably because it came out at around the same time as the Pokémon anime, barely anyone realized this when it was originally airing, and thus didn't bother to watch it much. (But we did!)

One season (52 of the planned 65) of episodes were produced before the show was cancelled over budget concerns (i.e. being $10 million over it), then were repeated numerous times for the next three seasons before being taken off the network in 2001. Unlike its predecessors, Histeria! did not reappear in syndication on Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon. The show would've been forgotten altogether (But not by us!) if not for the fact that, in 2006, it reappeared as part of the initial lineup of Time Warner's In2TV channel until they were inexplicably removed in January 2009.

Tropes used in Histeria! include:

• Abhorrent Admirer: Cleopatra
• Adam Westing: One episode features Ernest Hemingway voiced by the Trope Namer himself.
• Anachronism Stew: Historical figures from different times tend to appear in other times, usually in crowd shots.
• Animated Actors
• Ax Crazy: Lizzie Borden is portrayed this way. In one episode, she refers to herself as the "O.J. [Simpson] of 1849."
• Beach Episode: "The Dawn of Time" ends with the cast hanging out at the beach.
• Big Eater: Froggo.
• Biting the Hand Humor: As expected from a WB comedy cartoon.
• Brainless Beauty: Miss Information, providing the page image.
• Butt Monkey: Pule Houser. Lydia Karaoke on some occasions (justified in that she's a network censor).
• Canada, Eh??
• Catch Phrases
  • Charity Bazaar frequently states, "I'm not happy."
  • Loud Kiddington constantly describes someone by saying, "WHAT A _________!" (usually "grouch").
  • Lucky Bob frequently shouts out Ed McMahon's catch phrases.
• Censor Box: Apparently LBJ has one heck of a hernia scar, but the network censor puts her clipboard in front of him at the right moment.

"Yes well, thank you, Mr. President, but let's see if we can do without your more, ahem, personal views, shall we?..."

• • This is in reference to LBJ's habit of whipping it out in front of the press corp.
• Cephalothorax: Big Fat Baby
• The Chew Toy: Pule Houser.
• Credits Gag
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Tress MacNeille as Toast.
• Crossover: Some of the Looney Tunes characters made a few cameos.
  • A notable one is Clark Kent as well... William Clark
• Cut Short: Unlike with its Speilberg-produced predecessors, Histeria! had no Grand Finale other than audio of the characters singing a goodbye song over the end credits of the last episode produced.
• Depending on the Artist / Off-Model: Happens quite a bit with the kids, especially Froggo. The artists couldn't decide whether he was supposed to be chubby or thin or somewhere in between.
• Dirty Old Woman: World's Oldest Woman.
• The Ditz: Lucky Bob.
• Does Not Like Men: Sappho.
• Dumb Blonde: Miss Information.
• Eenie Meenie Miny Moai: Half a song about Easter Island makes that trope's quote page.
• Emo Teen: Charity's younger than that, though.
• Expository Theme Tune
• Fictional Video Game: Froggo and Toast are shown playing a fighting game starring two Big Fat Babies in "Better Living Through Science".
• Fluffy Cloud Heaven
• Foot Focus
• Four-Fingered Hands
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: Big Fat Baby's flatulence, Mr. Smartypants being a man who "spends a lot of time in his pants", two episodes using the words "Hell" and "Damn," and Sappho "wasn't into men".
  • Perhaps part of the reason for this was that the show often had Lydia Karaoke, Network Censor complain about this trope.
    • In one episode, they were talking about ancient Greece and the vestal virgins. One of the kids asked what a virgin was and World's Oldest Woman replied "Let's just say, we didn't do a lot of dating."
  • Literal example when Mr. Smartypants relays the history of the toilet to the viewers, and getting to say "crapper".
    • Another literal example was Notable Original Music "Cowpie".
  • As stated, this is maybe the only kids' cartoon besides Gargoyles made between 1980 and today to get both "Hell" and "Damn" in wholesale and blatantly. Both times were quotes ("War is hell!" and "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!") and both times the in-show censor had a CONNIPTION fit over it.

David Farragut: Damn the torpedoes!
Lydia Karaoke: WHOA! You can't say that word! That word is a no-no!

• • • Admiral Farragut, "played by" Clint Eastwood, yelled at her that it was wartime, there was no time for pleasantries, and eventually threw her overboard directly onto said torpedoes (used in the then-current method to refer to what are now called "mines.") She even waved a little white flag, "Okay, now I see why they used 'Damn the torpedos'!"
  • All in all, not so much "getting past" the radar, as running over the radar dish with a bulldozer.
• Gender Flip: A promo where they flipped every word they could find from male to female and vice versa.
  • i.e. 'Hers'teria
• A Good Name for a Rock Band: Toast decides to name his band Nasty Head Wound after Daniel Boone suffers an actual head wound.
• Got Volunteered: The Mountie sketch, with Loud as the volunteer.
• Gross-Out Show: Big Fat Baby's flatulence.
• Guttural Growler: Froggo
• Hello, Nurse!: Miss Information.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Billy West voiced a Stegosaurus in "The Dawn of Time" with the voice he would use for Dr. Zoidberg.
  • Lydia Karaoke the Network Censor is voiced by Nora Dunn from Saturday Night Live (she was the female cast member who got fired from the show for refusing to appear in the episode hosted by Andrew "Dice" Clay because she hated his vulgar sense of humor).
  • In the episode about World War II, Adolf Hitler sounded like Dr. Claw.
  • Sitting Bull is apparently possessed by Candle Jack.
  • Viewers of Disney's One Saturday Morning can pretty much recognize Nostradamus as Manny the Uncanny.
    • ...He also played the Jerry Lewis-inspired director on Animaniacs.
• I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham: Loud Kiddington directly parodies this by asking George H.W. Bush to eat broccoli.
• In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It: The show's full title is Warner Bros.' Histeria!
• Idea Bulb (played with in the sketch about Thomas Edison)
• If It Tastes Bad, It Must Be Good for You: Somewhat parodied because George H. W. Bush was known for banning broccoli in the White House as a rather funny thing he did.
• Incessant Music Madness: There's a Civil War skit accompanied by violin music - eventually the soldier starts complaining about the music and winds up eating his own head so he won't have to hear it.
• Karmic Trickster: Loud Kiddington, particularly in the Mounties sketch.
  • Additionally, Bugs himself made a few cameos.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: DVDs have yet to be made available for this series.
• Little Miss Snarker: Charity Bazaar.
• Meaningful Name: Miss. Information.
• Mickey Mousing
• Monkeys on a Typewriter: In "Super Writers".
• Moral Guardian: Lydia Karaoke, the network censor, who would often interrupt sketches to point out the objectionable material, such as criticizing the "sassy virgin talk" when someone asks what a "vestal virgin" was, providing commentary on a sketch centered around a Roman vomitorium, and using her clipboard to cover up Lyndon Baines Johnson about to take off his pants to show his hernia scar.
• Narrator: Father Time.
• Name's the Same: Real Life instances were lampshaded by one of Pepper Mills' running gags, where she pesters a historical figure for an autograph, only to realize afterwards that they weren't the celebrity with the similar-sounding name that she was expecting. Like getting Leonardo da Vinci when she wanted Leonardo DiCaprio.
• The Napoleon: Napoleon himself.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Lots of historical figures are portrayed acting like celebrities; for instance, Julius Caesar and his murderers are Frank Sinatra and the other members of the Rat Pack.
  • Also overlaps with Name's the Same for some meta gags where the celebrity and historical figure share a name; Karl Marx was played like Groucho Marx and Lewis and Clark were Jerry Lewis and Clark Kent.
• No Fourth Wall
• No Indoor Voice: Loud Kiddington, who is less "Outdoor Voice" and more like "Halfway across Manhattan Voice"
• No Name Given: Crooked Mouth Boy and Bow-Haired Girl. Storyboards for "When America Was Young", recently made available online, reveal that Crooked Mouth Boy's name is actually Chipper, though.
• Non Sequitur Thud
• Note to Self:: "Never again hire anyone from Cabin Crews R Us."
• Opposites Attract: Miss Information and Mr. Smartypants hooked up in a Dating Game parody.
• Overly Long Name: Sarah Coopersmith-Fitzwarren-Goldenheimer-Stein.
• Parental Bonus: Jokes that didn't fall under Getting Crap Past the Radar tended to be these. One example was Confucius portrayed as an Expy of political commentator John McLaughlin.
• Parody Commercial
• Punny Names: Pretty much every character on the show.
• Refuge in Audacity: "My Buddy Stalin"
  • The fact that, much like Tiny Toon Adventures and Western Animation/Animaniacs, that Spielberg and company (although Steven Spielberg wasn't involved with this one) once again pisses off the censors with as much radar-dodging crap as possible. Added bonus for the fact that the censor character here is often treated like a Butt Monkey.
• A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside An Enigma: Parodied. Winston Churchill is shown saying the trope quote, and then we zoom out to reveal that he's behind the counter of a fast food restaurant.
• Rule of Funny: While it did include more references to history than cartoons in general, the writers didn't concern themselves too much with the fact they were billing the show as "informative" and "educational" programming... in, well, any situation where they thought accuracy would get in the way of humor.
  • The episode involving the Underground Railroad was a rare exception. You do NOT make fun of slavery in America - or in most of the rest of the world, come to that.
• Running Gag:
  • Pepper constantly mistaking historical celebrities for pop cultural ones, never realizing her mistake until she's gotten their autograph. For instance, mistaking Vladimir Lenin for John Lennon.
  • Loud watching something and alternating between "See it, see it..." and "DON'T SEE IT!! DON'T SEE IT!!" depending on whether he sees it.
  • The last time the Big Fat Baby had his diaper changed. Whenever someone asked, a character would respond by asking, "Remember when [insert historical event here]?" The inquirer would respond affirmatively, the character would respond with "Before that."
  • In sketches where Loud and Fetch are running a business, Loud says that if he can't make a deal, Fetch will eat something disgusting, which said dog will get upset about.
• Screwed by the Network: The show's time slots kept changing during its inaugural year on Kids' WB!, eventually taking it off the Saturday morning block altogether and settling into airing only on weekday mornings after Pokemon - too late for kids to watch it on school mornings, and too early for them to wake up for on vacation mornings.
• Sassy Black Woman. Aka Pella.
• Shout-Out: References to previous WB cartoons are sometimes made:
  • Big Fat Baby's jingle (the one where Father Time's chasing him in the desert) is based on the theme song from The Road Runner Show.
  • Froggo's room is decorated with merchandise for Batman: The Animated Series.
  • Froggo's regular outfit is much like the one of Wakko from Animaniacs. (Unlike Wakko, though, he actually wears pants.)
  • A song introducing a sketch about Alexander the Great is sung to the tune of the Animaniacs theme, and the sketch about Florence Nightingale as a Hospital Hottie ends with the boys shouting "Hello, Nurse!!" Also, the World's Oldest Woman's jingle is sung to the tune of Slappy Squirrel's theme.
  • The Pinky and The Brain theme music can be heard when Chit Chatterson mentions brain removal in a sketch about mummification.
    • As well as part of the background music for the introduction to Nikola Tesla's later life.
  • Clark Kent's appearance as William Clark, of course. Additionally, Superman made two other cameos as himself (one of which had his "S" emblem written as "F", which some have speculated is a nod to Freakazoid!!).
  • Fetch bears a bit of resemblance to Hunter from Road Rovers. This could just be a result the Kids' WB! "house style" though. Notably, though, the last episode contains a brief gag in which Fetch dashes onstage joined by dogs who appear to be of the same breeds as Blitz, Exile, and Shag.
  • The Revolutionary War episode (I think it was that episode, only remember seeing a handful of episodes) had a segment where the action was "called" by parodies of the lead FOX NFL duo at the time of Pat Summerall and John Madden.
  • the sketch about the Boston Tea Party ends up being a homage to Monty Python's Cheese Shop sketch, replacing types of cheeses with types of tea (and even having John Cleese do a voice cameo)
  • One alternate opening credit is done exactly in the style of Saturday Night Live.
  • A skit involving the Spice Islands involves, naturally enough, a Spice Girls parody. World's Oldest Woman is peeved that she's apparently "Old Spice".
  • Loud Kiddington's Expository Theme Tune bears a striking resemblance to the theme tune of Bat Masterson.
  • In "The Dawn of Time", a cow falls on Foghorn Leghorn.
• Shown Their Work: The series has its moments, it's an amusing show that is all about bringing a subject that is typically perceived as stuffy and irrelevant to younger people. In particular the series does a good job on the Second World War, giving a basic (it is a kid's show after all) outline of the lead-up to Nazi Germany and doesn't particularly gloss over the less-mentioned parts of the war (i.e. alliance with the most assuredly non-democratic Soviet Union and the postwar Europe debacle) that often escape mention in other sources.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Superheroes Yin and Yang
• Sorry I Left the BGM On
• Snowball Fight: How they depicted the Cold War
• Speech Impediment: Susanna Susquahanna has a huge lisp.
• Take That: A cat burps up Mickey Mouse's shorts in "Really Really Oldies but Goodies", and a later episode opens with Loud, Charity, Aka, and Toast parodying the Teletubbies (much to their chagrin).
• Talking Animal: Loud's dog, Fetch.
• Talking to Himself
  • Frank Welker as Father Time and Pule Houser.
  • Tress MacNeille as Toast, Pepper, and Susanna.
• Theme Tune Roll Call: Both of the regular theme songs had it.
• The Renaissance Age of Animation
• They Call Me Mister Tibbs: "That's Mister Hannibal to you!"
• Travel Montage: Hannibal's trip across the Alps.
• Vague Age: The kids' ages are never given, but it is mentioned in one episode that they attend William Howard Taft Big Around the Middle School. However, Froggo is actually said to be ten in "The U.S. Civil War - Part 2".
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Shown in one episode as Alexander the Great's relationship with his father Philip of Macedon, as Philip infuriates Alexander by always telling him that his feats are "pretty good but not great". Actually likely Truth in Television of the relationship between the two - there have long been rumors Alexander had something to do with his father's assassination.
• Who's on First?: This pops up during Father Time's attempt to quiz Lucky Bob and Susanna about the Zhou Dynasty.
  • Also done in the Lewis and Clark sketch when Lewis asks Clark which way to turn on the river.
• Writing Lines: In a parody of the intro to The Simpsons, Loud has to write "I do not need a megaphone!"