Chapter Text
Yakko hated being on the Disney lot, especially now. It didn’t matter who owned Hulu or who’s money was funding his show, he was a WB toon and that wouldn’t change. He and his siblings were actually funny. What really got to him about being back on Disney’s lot after so many years was how sterlite everything felt now. All the old toons felt stripped of any humor or fun they may have started with and the new ones didn’t have it at all. It had been that way more in recent years, and even the Animaniacs reboot stripped a bit of their original character away. But not as much as Disney. Thank God. Still, the whole thing made him shudder.
He just wanted to get the whole thing over with. He had a meeting with Max Goof--or as Yakko currently knew him, the massive thorn in his side. The meeting was at 10am and if he were lucky the whole thing would be done by 10:05am.
The new studio exec at WB, Ms. Nora Rita Norita, practically pushed him off the lot begging him to handle the Disney cease and desist on his own. Despite her complete lack of humor, he found the fact she was willing to send one of the zaniest toons in WB history alone to a Disney meeting absolutely side-splitting. Plotz would have completely flipped his lid at the thought of sending a Warner Brother or sister--individually or together--to do anything vaguely meeting the definition of a "legal matter". Maybe that's why Norita wasn't as much of a target for their antics, she didn't 'flip a lid' or 'blow her top' she just blinked unphased and told you to handle your own shit. Yakko had to admit that he respected her for that.
When he first heard about the situation, Yakko had half a mind to wreak utter havoc on the whole meeting with a gag bag and some "special friend" antics. Honestly, he didn't care what people were saying about him and the other 2000's toon, let the fans do what they like, fans usually did anyway. No skin off his teeth. Disney could deal with it however they wanted to, it was ridiculous that he was even being asked to solve this. Ridiculous as the whole thing was, inevitably Disney would throw their lawyers around and it would just be easier to do this now and get it over with.
He had a plan already, they'd tackle their respective halves of the rumors and call it a day. They didn't even really need a meeting for this, did they? A zoom call would have sufficed.
Yakko remembered the Disney lot from his time spent with the other popular toons of the 90's. It was a complete free-for-all and the parties were legendary. Sure, whenever the Warner sibs showed up security immediately got dispatched, but there was only one way to crash a Disney party and it was in the Talespin prop plane. He smiled fondly at the thought as he casually strolled through the studios and on to the old animation house. No one batted an eye at him now, no one screamed or tore their hair out at his presence. No one remembered little Yakko Warner, trouble maker extraordinaire. It was depressing. He wanted this over with.
He stood before the decaying 1960’s construction which felt dated even to his inherent 1930's sensibilities. The old animation studio got gutted in roughly 2010 after hand-drawn animation took a nosedive in favor of Flash animation and CGI. Disney built a new studio and this studio was left to rot. It felt allegorical, emblematic, symbolic.
As he walked into the building, he was assaulted by a waiting room more sterile than a dental office and, for fucks sake was that drop ceiling? He strode up to the receptionist desk, greeting the receptionist with a signature "Hello Nurse!", but she only stared blankly in return. "Tough crowd." He straightened his pink plaid neck Dot gifted him for his birthday years ago. She insisted he wear it because it made his eyes pop, but everything matched their eyes, they were black. Dot just wanted to laugh at Yakko when his fingers got tied up in making a knot and watching him beg for her help. She wouldn't have let him leave without the tie. She was incorrigible, but that was Dot.
"I've got a meeting with Max Goof at 10," he pulled back a layer of fur revealing a terribly drawn watch that read an incoherent watchface. "If he's late I'm calling my agent."
"Mr. Warner, please-" the receptionist said.
"Mr. Warner was my father, but you can call me... anytime you'd like," he leaped over the desk into her arms, plucking her name plaque off her desk reading it off, "Geraldine."
Geraldine offered a less than amused smile, dropping Yakko unceremoniously to the floor, grabbing her desk plaque from his hands on his way down. "Mr. Warner," she emphasized.
"Playing hard to get I see-" she cut him off by shoving a stale root beer Dum-Dum in his open mouth. Her hands so quickly unwrapping the lollipop that the action left him as speechless as the candy now in his mouth.
"Your appointment is waiting for you in conference room 3B. Up the stairs, to the left, three doors down." Geraldine couldn't hold a candle to their studio nurse, but she could handle her toons well enough. She won this round.
He waved a simple goodbye and went where she directed him. The room was easy enough to find with the excessive fluorescent lights that would certainly give him a migraine later. Yakko pushed the door to room 3B open, surprised to find just a single toon in the sparsely furnished conference room.
The first thing Yakko noticed about Max Goof was how much he looked exactly like Goofy and how much he wanted to introduce his face to a mallet. The second thing he noticed was the dated color palette on the toon, it was clear he’d been forgotten. The last thing he noticed was that the toon was much shorter than he expected for having Goofy as his dad, and only stood about a foot taller than Yakko.
"Max Goof, Yakko Warner. Nice to meet you, pal.” Yakko hopped up on the table striding confidently towards Max, “So listen, I was hoping you’d tell your Disney lawyers to go shove this cease n’ desist right up their-”
“Wait,” Max shoved a quieting finger over his lips, “You think Disney was going to spend money...on this?” He laughed, removing his hand to gesture between them.
“Good point. Knowing Eisner, he’s probably found a way to bathe in gold like that fuddy old duck with the reboot.”
“Eisner? You crazy? You got a-a-a- reboot released in 2020 and you don’t even know the current CEO of Disney isn’t Michael Eisner,” Max said exasperated, “You’re the reason we’re in this mess and you can’t even be bothered-”
“Me?” Yakko sat cross legged on the table in front of Max. Easily settling into old habits of tormenting gullible Disney toons. “Au contraire mon frère, it is you that got us into this mess.”
“Me?!” Max pulled back, face going red. He was annoyed and angry, Yakko prided himself on the reaction especially after the receptionist. “I haven’t been in anything since they made me go 3D for that Christmas movie in 2004.”
“Really I think your cameo in Ducktales was what did us both in.” Yakko smiled. He’d done his research on the Disney toon, enlisting Wakko and Dot to assist. They watched everything that contained Max Goof, including but not limited to: Goof Troop, A Goofy Movie, An Extremely Goofy Movie, House of Mouse, the aforementioned Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas, and the episode of rebooted DuckTales with Max’s tiniest cameo. “Kids these days like to make everything gay.”
Max sat far back in his chair with a sigh, scrubbing gloved hand across his snout.
“Listen, Maxy, baby. Tomato, tomahto. Potato, potahto. Let’s call this whole thing off.”
“What are you even babbling about?” Max stuck a gloved finger in Yakko's face provoking a small squeaky noise from it, “You literally haven’t said a thing since you got here.”
“True,” Yakko brushed the finger out of his face, “But I’ve learned a lot.” He twisted himself so he laid spread out on the table now, propped up on his elbows and swinging his legs. “One, Disney doesn’t care about any of this because they didn’t send you in here with so much as a lawyer or an agent. That’s bad showbiz, if fact, that’s just plain bad biz. Two, reboots make you touchy. Your dad is an icon, so he’s constantly getting retouched. You got overlooked by Disney for Donald Duck’s triplet nephews for a series and they didn’t bother to credit you for a cameo. In fact, and this brings me to my third point, Disney didn’t even bother to slap a fresh coat of paint on ya for the trouble. They also didn’t bother to gussy you up for a big star like me. So consider me personally offended.”
Yakko paused to take a breath. He hadn’t meant to psychoanalyze the poor guy, but that’s what years of studio mandated therapy with Scratchy did to a toon. He also begrudgingly realized that upon seeing poor Max Goof, his plans completely shifted. He hadn't even considered pulling out a mallet or dropping an anvil once. Yakko couldn’t let the toon go on like this, he understood the pain of being left behind too. He and the Animaniacs cast were stuck in their 1999 movie form until the reboot, but he thought Disney would at least do something considering the advent of Disney+.
“I’m not gonna lie to you Maxy, this looks like pretty dire straits for you. But I think we could turn this ship around because I’ve got an idea.”
* * *
Max hadn’t seen Yakko Warner since the premiere of Wakko’s Wish in December of 1999. He remembered sleeping through most of it because his press schedule for An Extremely Goofy movie was amping up for it’s February 2000 release date. He slept through most premieres around that time. He also remembered the Warner siblings being as insane as everyone said, but it was a spectacle to behold on the red carpet.
Unfortunately, he did not remember just how much Yakko Warner liked to talk.
Max could hardly say a sentence before Yakko plunged into a stunning linguistic feat, speaking in paragraphs without a single breath. He watched the 1993 Animaniacs; he knew the other child star had a solid set of lungs. (Max would be lying if he said “Yakko’s World” and the companion song “Wakko’s America” didn’t get him through a few geography quizzes.) It was just aggravating being belittled by a Warner sibling. A big wig like Bugs or Porky, sure. This little guy? No way.
"You want to just go along with this 'Yax' thing." Max eyed the smug expression across Yakko’s face, so sure of himself. Max was about ready to leave. The Warner Brother could handle this on his own.
"Precisely, mon cherie!" Yakko rolled off the table, starting to pace the room. "I know you're Disney, but humor me would ya? We use this to get you popular again. It starts a buzz, we get some media coverage, you get that nostalgia attention that Disney has been cash-cowing recently, and they update you at least a little. It's a perfect plan."
Yakko gave him an expectant look, waiting for him to agree.
Max thought about it, he honestly didn't think it would work. Disney would probably come down harder on them, but then again, Yakko brought up a good point. There weren't any lawyers here and, oddly enough, the Goof's usual agent wasn't even in attendance.
"You really think we could pull this off?" Max finally stood from the table and went over to the smaller toon.
"Without a doubt," Yakko beamed at him, but there was something unfamiliar in his toothy grin that made him wary. "Do we have a deal?"
“Did they give you canines, Warner?”
"What?" Yakko, for the first time since entering the room, seemed speechless.
"The vampire fangs," Max pointed to his own blunt canines.
"Max," he snapped his mouth closed but Max could see him run his tongue over them, "Yes or no."
"I'm surprised they let you have those with the havoc you and your siblings caused."
"You're stalling."
"Fine," Max gave in. "What's the worst that could happen anyway."
The two shook hands and exchanged contacts. Yakko walked from the room looking rather pleased with himself. Max followed a couple minutes wondering what the hell he just agreed to.