America has always had a tradition of excellent voice acting, going back to radio. The talent has always been there; June Foray has been working steadily since the 1940s. What happened in the early 90s is that TV animation became more sophisticated, and directors started demanding more subtlety from their actors.

So I just watched this Michael Shannon movie called Take Shelter. Has anyone else seen it?

Yes.

I thought it was excellent, but I was left wondering if we were supposed to take the ending literally, or metaphorically, or both, or what. Because it kind of works any way you cut it, and it's kind of messed up any way you interpret it.

It seemed literal to me. I was left wondering what the point of the movie was.

Looking back at Animaniacs, the animation was terrible. The attempts at physical humor were poorly timed, and usually fell flat. The show relied almost entirely on voice acting and music to carry the show. It’s more like illustrated radio more than animation. In fact, some of their best bits were in fact recycled radio gags.

The show relied almost entirely on voice acting and music to carry the show.

Good thing they had the best patter songs of the last forty years, and some of the premier voice talent.

Good thing they had the best patter songs of the last forty years

The ice-cream truck on our street uses "Turkey in the Straw" as its godforsaken, tinny song blaring from the loudspeaker. And every time it comes down the street, I get earwormed with "Wakko's America." Damn those Animaniacs.

And I just earwormed myself with it just by posting about it.

Well played, Animaniacs. Well played.

Well played, Animaniacs. Well played.

Second-hand, even. Well played indeed.

I'm suffering through the opening narration for Mirror, Mirror. God, Keanu Reeves would be better.

It seemed literal to me. I was left wondering what the point of the movie was.

Except everything else he saw seemed pretty literal too. Like all the furniture suspended in midair because gravity stopped working. That was shot to seem pretty literal. And when his wife saw the storm at the end, she got rained on by the orange stuff he'd been seeing too. So I'm not convinced it was cut and dry that the ending was literal. Actually, as my roommate pointed out, interpreting it metaphorically actually makes the ending kind of a happy ending ( the wife and daughter accept that dad is crazy and begin to deal with that. The wife begins to understand the size of the problem, and even faced with something that catastrophic, her response is "Okay." ). My roommate first took it as literal as well, until I pointed out that there's a strong case to be made that it's not literal. I mean, we're given no cause for the final storm. Particularly the giant tsunami. If it's supposed to be literal, that's the end of the freakin' world right there.

If it's literal then it still works (for me), it's just much more depressing, because it's just a retelling of the Cassandra tale.