Anthropomorphism - The Warners

"Dateline: Hollywood, 1930, the Warner Bros. Studio, home to the biggest stars in Tinsel Town. Here at the studio's new animation department, the artists toil endlessly to come up with cartoon stars, ultimately creating three new characters -- the Warner Brothers and their sister Dot. The trio ran amok throughout the studio, creating utter chaos. Finally, they were captured. The Warners' films, which made absolutely no sense, were locked away in the studio vault, never to be released. As for the Warners themselves, who made even less sense, they were locked away in the studio water-tower, also never to be released. Publicly, the studio has disavowed any knowledge of the Warners' existence, to this very day..." - Newsreel of the Stars, Animaniacs Episode 1

The Warners (Yacko, Wakko and their sister Dot) are three rubberhose-style characters designed to look like the cartoons of the 30's (black bodies with white faces was a pretty typical look for the earliest cartoons). The exact species to which they belong is unidentified, though characters within the Animaniacs show often refer to them as "puppy children" despite the Warner's insistence that they are not, in fact, puppies. Within the continuity of 'Animaniacs' (or what little continuity there is), it is heavily suggested that the Warners were created before their time. They use very wacky, off-the-wall humour that would have been out of place in cartoons of the 30's. Saying that, they are also out of place in the 90's as they still retain their rubberhose style. Their bodies are rubbery, stretchy and very malleable - much like the cartoons of the Golden Age. They move with a lot of squash, stretch and bounce and have musical talent which fit perfectly with the era they were supposedly created for. So it is clear that the Warner children are not human beings, or any other animal we know exists. So how do we know they are children? How do they make us relate to them if they're not even animals, let alone human beings?

Without other characters calling them "children" or "kids", it's clear that the Warners are young children, despite them not looking very human. They have a youthful energy (an excessive amount of it, in fact) and generally behave like human children. They have been known to cry loudly to get adults to do what they want, mock authority figures by pulling silly faces or making childish comments and have frequently displayed a naive attitude to historical or political figures whilst having knowledge of current celebrities. To me, this suggests that they are tweens or young teenagers. Yacko, being taller than Wakko or Dot, seems to be the oldest and his understanding of innuendo implies to me that he is a young teenager.

The three Warners are all stretchy, insane and hyperactive. However, they each have their specialities. Dot leads in being cute, Yakko has puns and innuendo and Wakko is the king of slapstick and visual humour. Like human beings, they are not restricted to their specialities, but they're still better at certain things than the others. This makes them more real and more relatable. Wakko's speciality in visual humour seems to give him a wider range of gags to employ on-screen, however. He is often seen pulling faces in the background and eating parts of the set or scenery while Yakko and Dot do their thing. In this sense, the three seem a lot more like actors than most cartoon characters, as it seems Wakko is performing unscripted actions as a child-actor often would. I believe this is also a hint that Wakko is the middle-child (making Dot the youngest and Yakko the oldest). He seems to be more wacky and less mature than his already very immature siblings, as if trying to get more attention from the audience. He has also been seen entertaining his sister while Yakko deals with a plot-centric character, something I would think an older brother would do for his youngest sibling. In the same way, Wakko seems to hold a certain level of respect for Yakko. When Wakko wanted to try out a new gag, he asked Yakko for his opinion before anyone else. This further enforces Yakko's role as the older brother, as well as the way Yakko is often seen looking after his siblings and acting as a leader to the trio. With these close relationships, it is very easy to relate to the Warners as human beings. Even their subtle mannerisms, like the way their expressions are always different, make it easy to see past their tails, puppy ears and red noses and see within them a human family unit of three siblings.