Pinky (Animaniacs)

Pinky is a recurring character in Animaniacs, one of the titular protagonists of Pinky and the Brain and of Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain, and a cameo character in Freakazoid!. He is Brain's silly sidekick.

Just like Brain, Pinky is a genetically modified mouse. He has a straight tail, blue eyes, and a severe overbite. He is taller than The Brain. Pinky shares Brain's cage at ACME Labs. He is significantly dimmer than his genius cagemate and speaks with an exaggerated Cockney accent. He has several verbal tics, such as "narf", "zort", "poit" and "troz" (the latter of which he started saying after noticing it was zort in the mirror).

Pinky is the Brain's minion/friend and tries to aid him in his plans to take over the world. Unfortunately for Brain, Pinky's idiocy often interferes with the success of his plans (though he has also had his occasional moments of brilliance). The Brain is annoyed by Pinky's dimness and often abuses him, but occasionally he has also shown that he actually genuinely cares for him.

He is voiced by Rob Paulsen, who also voiced a lot of other heroic characters, such as Yakko Warner and Dr. Scratchansniff in the series, Raphael from the 1984 TMNT series and Donatello from the 2012 reboot, among hundreds of others.

Personality[]

Although Pinky can be considered an antagonist of Animaniacs, he is as far from being a villain as possible and is the polar opposite of the Brain: he is good-hearted, pure, absent-minded, silly, immature, emotional, sensitive and sweet. He cares a great deal about the Brain and always tries to help and support him the best he can and admires him almost regardless of the abuse he regularly receives.

Pinky is very scatter-brained, which is sometimes the factor of his and Brain’s ultimate failure in taking over the world (but not always) due to his misunderstanding of Brain’s plan, incompetence or bumbling. He clearly pays only limited attention to Brain’s schemes and thoughts, often interpreting them in his very own way (best evident in the famous catchphrase where Brain asks “Pinky, are you pondering what I’m pondering?”, to which Pinky always replies “I think so, Brain, but…” finishing with a random absurd thought) and approaches them playfully and cheerfully, although when time comes, he is a bit more serious and focused. He views the world around him very optimistically and can be over-enthusiastic or positively misunderstanding about many ordinary things and - unlike Brain most of the time - just plain enjoys life.

Despite his apparent low intelligence, there are moments that show that while he isn’t book-smart, he has a lot of emotional intelligence - easily feeling compassion or empathy - and is generally more open-minded and imaginative than Brain, despite often letting himself slip into fantasies. In the episode “Welcome to the Jungle”, where the duo get lost in the jungle, Pinky surpasses Brain in survival by letting his superior natural instincts guide him and, thanks to them, temporarily becomes the leader of the duo. He also has a high knowledge of pop culture and enjoys watching TV; that knowledge would have also been crucial in the very first “Pinky and the Brain” segment “Win Big” where Brain competes on a game show Gyp-parody! (an obvious parody of Jeopardy!) in order to win the top cash prize to aid his plans, only to fail on the very last question involving the TV show Pinky was watching in the beginning of the episode, which would’ve been answered correctly had he listened to what Pinky was saying, for the first time proving that Pinky himself isn’t always the cause of the plan’s failure.

He always puts Brain and almost anyone else before himself. The best evidence of this is obviously his continual help, support and care for Brain, regardless of his arrogance and his plans always failing, about which Pinky clearly does not care much if Brain himself doesn’t. He is determined to help him and anyone in need without any hesitation and is willing to sacrifice even his own life for them; he even once sold his soul to the Devil so Brain could take over the world, with Brian giving it up and saving Pinky due to missing him. Pinky also saved Brain many times and helped him save his crush Billie from a kidnapping. While Brain rarely shows his affection - or any kind of emotion - towards him, instead berating and abusing, yet coldly tolerating him, Pinky truly loves Brain and is able to see the good side of him, shown in his letter to Santa Claus where he assures Santa that Brain wants nothing but good for Earth.

Despite him and Brain being polar opposites completely differing in personalities, goals and motivations, they also are unable to work without each other and fall apart separated, proving that, although perfectly mismatched, they’re still a dynamic duo and nobody could ever replace either of them.

Heroic Acts[]

He always tries to aid and support Brain the best he can in his plans and never leaves him hanging.
He occasionally helps Brain to foil Snowball's evil plans.
He saved Brain from getting killed by drowning in quicksand.
He stopped Snowball from trying to kill the Brain.
He helped Brain by trying to save Billie from being kidnapped.