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Buttons and Mindy
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Buttons and Mindy are characters that were regularly featured on the animated children's television show Animaniacs. Their segments centered around three characters: Buttons (voiced by Frank Welker), a heroic German shepherd-type dog; Mindy Sadlier (voiced by Nancy Cartwright), an accident-prone female toddler; and Mindy's mother (voiced by Tress MacNeille), who was often referred to as "Lady" by Mindy. One never saw above her waist, though her brown hair can be seen briefly in the Animaniacs movie Wakko's Wish. Mindy also had a father (voiced by Frank Welker), who appeared in a few episodes.
The plots are deceptively simple. Mindy is left alone with Buttons, one of the few non-anthropomorphized characters in the series, who is charged as babysitter by her mother. Soon after, ever-curious Mindy wanders off with Buttons chasing after her. Buttons faithfully keeps her from harm, often taking the brunt of horrible abuse and injury. Somehow Mindy manages to wander back home unharmed, yet Buttons is ironically always scolded for being inattentive and disobedient by Mindy's mother, as upon his return, he is set up to look like he misbehaved in some way (terrorizing the mailmen, letting Mindy get dirty, etc.). However, Mindy always hugs Buttons and tells her dog she loves him afterwards. This plot-line is remarkably similar to the Roger Rabbit and Baby Herman team-ups featured in Who Framed Roger Rabbit as well as its spin-off cartoons.
A running gag in the cartoons is a moment where Mindy comes across somebody and asks what they're doing. This prompts a series of "Why?"s from Mindy until the person finally gets exasperated, at which point Mindy will say "Okay, I love you, buh-bye!" and continue on her way, at which point the person will finally realize what just happened. Another running gag, is usually Mindy calling her mother, "Nice Lady", which makes Mindy's mother to ask her to call her any mommy names. In the movie Wakko's Wish, Mindy finally called her mother "mommy".
The formula of the Buttons and Mindy cartoons seems to be a poke at both Lassie and Hanna-Barbera—in fact, one of the shorts, "Cat on a Hot Steel Beam," was lifted from a Tom and Jerry short featuring the cat-and-mouse duo pursuing a baby who had wandered out onto an unfinished skyscraper, and an off-model Tom and Jerry even appear in the short chasing an errant infant. This scenario was also the plot of two classic Popeye cartoons, (the Fleischer short A Dream Walking and its Famous Studios remake), with a hypnotized Olive Oyl. Additionally, Mindy's remarkable luck and innocence is reminiscent of Mr. Magoo. The Buttons and Mindy cartoons are also similar to Warner Bros.' own Marc Antony and Pussyfoot theatrical shorts.
In several shorts, Buttons and Mindy have been re-designed as Flintstones, Jetsons, and even mermaid-type characters.
In a non-Buttons & Mindy short entitled "Lookit the Fuzzy Heads!", the Warner Brothers (and the Warner Sister) use Mindy as a way to get Elmyra to leave them alone, by having Mindy follow a wind-up toy, then Elmyra follows Mindy, who subsequently receives the punishment that Buttons usually receives, much to the amusement of Buttons.