This is a promotional image for the Warner Bros. cartoon Animaniacs, a Looney Tunes-esque comedy series featuring original characters and shorts that ran from 1993 to 1998. The show's humor was a broad mix of old-fashioned cartoon wackiness and pop culture references, among other things, with one of its most distinct characteristics being its post-modern, self-aware look at classic cartoon themes. This self-awareness is reflected in the show's three main characters: Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, (collectively referred to as "The Warner Brothers (and the Warner Sister)"), pictured in the image. During the show's creation, the Warners were originally supposed to be ducks, but supervisor Tom Ruegger shot down the idea because "...everybody had ducks" and ultimately decided on a "...generic animal creature", designing the trio in the style of old black-and-white cartoon characters of the 1920s and 30s, with simple black drawings and white faces (e.g., Felix the Cat, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit).

In addition to the trio's post-modern take on cartoon humor, one running gag throughout Animaniacs is the question of what species the Warners are supposed to be modeled after. Unlike the rest of the show's cast, which comprises of humans, mice, squirrels, pigeons, and more, no one really knows what the Warners are, not even themselves. In-universe characters and fans of the show alike have called them everything from mice to monkeys to "puppy children". The Warners themselves used this discrepancy as a source of humor from time to time; one sketch devotes an entire musical number to guessing their species, only for the trio to conclude that they are "cute".

Overall, I found this ambiguity to be surprisingly enjoyable, and one of the most memorable things about these characters. Although the Warners don't seem to be any particular animal or species, at the same time, they don't come across as alien either. More often than not, when you're designing a cartoon character, you're setting yourself up for seemingly endless ways to succeed, but even more ways to fail. The trio's ambiguous species representation thus allows the animators to kill two birds with one stone; on the one hand, they put a clever twist on the age-old theme of anthropomorphic cartoon animals by having these characters not really be animals at all, and on the other hand, they aren't really alien or overly abstract either, allowing them to come across as believable. The animators effortlessly blend stylization with believability and creativity with convention to create characters that are both entertaining and emotionally investable.