Title: "The Britches of Madison County"

Writers: Sean Carolan & Jennifer Moore
Penciller: Walter Carzon
Inker: Horacio Ottolini
Letterer: John Costanza
Colorist: Bob LeRose
Cover: Walter Carzon & Horacio Ottolini

Release Date: November 17th, 1999
Cover Price: $1.99 U.S./ $2.85 Canada

Summary:
Brain plans to take over the world by tightening everyone's pants.

Description:
Brain discovers the audible frequency that fabric contracts at, and plans to create worldwide wedgies. But he must test it on other pants materials now. Pinky goes undercover as a woman in the mechanical suit to find more pants. A pants salesman (no resemblance to Clint Eastwood, really!) falls in love with Pinky, and Brain encourages Pinky to lead him on so he can get more pants to experiment on. But Pinky eventually breaks it off, because there's "someone else." Brain discovers that the man's car horn creates the perfect frequency to shrink the pants. He replicates it, but it doesn't work after all—he forgot to carry the six.

Pages (out of 32): 6 pp.

AYPWIP:
BRAIN: Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?

PINKY: I think so, Brain, but the ointment expired weeks ago!

Quote of the Story:
PINKY: You can't just toy with people's hearts to get at their pants! [G'night, everybody! –Craig.]

Review:
Carolan & Moore make their P&tB debut, and do a superb job. This story has it all—a bizarre outset, great parody, fabulous artwork, lots of the usual Carolan/Moore silliness, some wonderful lines, and is even quite touching in spots. The somewhat weak ending can be forgiven (after all, they are restricted to 6 page format here). Highly recommended.

Rating:  

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Title: "This Year's Model"

Writer: Joe Edkin
Penciller: Leo Batic
Inker: Jim Amash
Letterer: Phil Felix
Colorist: Bob LeRose

Summary:
Slappy competes against a statuesque Sciurid for laughs.

Description:
Skippy drags Slappy to the filming of a "Snappy Squirrel" cartoon. The good-looking-but-unfunny new star steals Slappy's old shtick, but manages to make it humorless. After Slappy's complaining, the director decides to let her do the scenes along with Snappy, to let them compete for laughs. After stealing all Snappy's laughs, Slappy—you guessed it—blows the whole place up!

Pages (out of 32): 6 pp.

Quote of the Story:
GUY: Snappy is the coolest thing on TV since Teletubbies!

SLAPPY: That cool? I hope it's not cold enough to need my electric socks.

Review:
A pretty good showing for Edkin, which manages to make some nice points on pop culture, and lets Batic flex his talents, with lots of great wild takes and explosions. The camera lady who's cheering for Slappy the whole time is a nice touch (although LeRose changed her colors around nearly every time she appeared…). Did anyone else think Snappy looked like a squirrel version of Lola Bunny? Also note Skippy's initial reaction to seeing her picture on the bottom of page one…

Rating: 

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Title: "Thanksgiving Boo"

Writer: Joe Edkin
Penciller: Leo Batic
Inker: Jim Amash
Letterer: P. Felix
Colorist: B. LeRose

Description:
A family invites "Cousin Merle" (Boo) over for Thanksgiving dinner, but the kid in the family is the only one who realizes that he's actually a giant chicken…

Pages (out of 32): 2 pp.

Review:
…huh? I can't help thinking that I missed something. Was this intended as a parody of something? If not, it's one of the worst Boo stories I've ever seen…

Rating: 

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Title: "Things That Go Bonk in the Night!"

Writer: Chuck Kim
Penciller: Leo Batic
Inker: Jim Amash
Letterer: Phil Felix
Colorist: Bob LeRose

Summary:
The Warners move into a haunted house.

Description:
The Warners decide they need more living space, and the WB people are glad to oblige. They show them several places that are *OFF* the Lot, but when they're thrown out of each, they're moved to another on-the-Lot location—a haunted house. But our heroes think the ghost is a bellboy. After they drive him absolutely insane, he calls the "Warner Busters," who are easily defeated. Finally, they become ghosts too, and the real ghost runs off. So, they try to return to their bodies…

Cameos by Pinky & the Brain and Mindy, and semi-cameos by Bugs and Scooby.

Pages (out of 32): 8 pp.

Quote of the Story:
YAKKO: Hey, it's "The World's Deadliest Paper-Cut Disasters!"

WAKKO: Ah, nothing like some fine programming from PBS! I hear this is even better than "The Earth's Worst E-mail Debacles!"

Review:
A very good story. Pretty close to all those "haunted house" cartoons in the Golden Age of animation, with an A! twist…lots of funny sight gags ("Can't a girl put her face on?"), helped greatly by some of Batic's best artwork (especially nice job on the last panel).

Rating:   ˝