Wakko's America

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Animaniacs song
"Wakko’s America"
Season no. 1
Episode no. 20
Orig. airdate October 11, 1993
Episode theme The United States of America
Sung by Jess Harnell
Written by Randy Rogel &
Tom Ruegger
Directed by Rusty Mills &
Ron Fleisher
Animated by StarToons
List of all Animaniacs episodes...

"Wakko's America" is a song sung by Wakko Warner from the American television series Animaniacs. It is a song similar to Yakko's World. The song was written by Randy Rogel, directed by Rusty Mills and Ron Fleisher, and animated by StarToons[1] The melody of the song is set to the tune of Turkey in the Straw. It has been used on some websites as an example of an educational song about state capitals [2]

"Wakko's America" is also briefly seen in a cameo appearance on the show Freakazoid!, where Wakko starts to sing the song but is quickly interrupted by the show's titular character, who wants to know what Wakko's doing.

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

Wakko's America begins where the Warner siblings are at school. Upon the beginning of the school day's "lesson", the classroom turns into a gameshow room that parodies (and in fact mentions) the game show Jeopardy!. Wakko picks the daily double, bets all of his money (which was $100, as this was only the second "answer" of the game), and is told to name all of the fifty states of the United States of America and their respective capital cities. ("Capital" is in fact misspelled "capitol") Wakko then pulls out a map, freehand sketches the Mississippi River with chalk, takes out a fiddle, and begins to sing.

The song starts with a map of the United States, with Wakko naming every state and its capital city. As Wakko sings, he points to each state so it glows and a star appears, the star representing the capital city's location in that state.

When the song is finished, Wakko is disappointed to find out that his answer is counted as incorrect because he forgot to answer in the form of a question, which is the proper format for answering on Jeopardy!. He then proceeds to break his fiddle over his head, knocking himself out cold.

(In the real series, Wakko would have been allowed to wager up to $500 at this stage of the game, and furthermore, since this was the opening round, the "answer in the form of a question" is not as strictly enforced, and Wakko would have been allowed to either start over with "What are" in the beginning or would have received credit.)

[edit] Lyrics

Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Indianapolis, Indiana
and Columbus is the capital of Ohio
There's Montgomery, Alabama south of Helena, Montana
Then there's Denver, Colorado under Boise, Idaho
Texas has Austin, then we go north
To Massachusetts, Boston and Albany, New York
Tallahassee, Florida and Washington D.C.
Santa Fe, New Mexico and Nashville, Tennessee

Elvis used to hang out there a lot, ya know

Trenton's in New Jersey north of Jefferson, Missouri
You've got Richmond in Virginia; South Dakota has Pierre
Harrisburg's in Pennsylvania and Augusta's up in Maine
And here is Providence, Rhode Island next to Dover, Delaware
Concord, New Hampshire, just a quick jaunt
To Montpelier which is up in Vermont
Hartford's in Connecticut, so pretty in the fall
And Kansas has Topeka; Minnesota has St. Paul

Juneau's in Alaska and there's Lincoln in Nebraska
And it's Raleigh out in North Carolina and then
There's Madison, Wisconsin and Olympia in Washington
Phoenix, Arizona and Lansing, Michigan
Here's Honolulu; Hawaii's a joy
Jackson, Mississippi and Springfield, Illinois
South Carolina with Columbia down the way
And Annapolis in Maryland on Chesapeake Bay

They have wonderful clam chowder

Cheyenne is in Wyomin' and perhaps you make your home in
Salt Lake City out in Utah where the buffalo roam
Atlanta's down in Georgia and there's Bismarck, North Dakota
And you can live in Frankfort in your old Kentucky home
Salem in Oregon, from there we join
Little Rock in Arkansas; Iowa's got Des Moines
Sacramento, California; Oklahoma and its city
Charleston, West Virginia and Nevada, Carson City!

That's all the capitals there are!

[edit] Peculiarities in the lyrics

  • Wakko mentions Washington D.C., even though it isn't a state capital nor in any state, but is the country's capital. This may also fall under poetic license.
  • Wakko says "Jefferson" rather than Jefferson City as the capital city of Missouri.
  • Wakko pronounces Pierre as "pee-YAIR" (the French pronunciation); the city's name is pronounced "peer" by its residents although "peeYAIR" is still used outside South Dakota. Wakko also pronounces Montpelier "MONT-pee-lee-YAIR", rather than "mont-PEEL-yer". These and other minor deviations (e.g., Concord NH's stress on the second syllable rather than the first) might be attributable to Wakko's heavy Scouse accent and to the need to meet the meter and rhyming patterns of the song.
  • The line "Salt Lake City out in Utah where the buffalo roam" references the first line in the classic Western ballad "Home on the Range", "Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam". It is notable that despite the line referencing Utah, "Home on the Range" has been the state song of Kansas since 1947.
  • The line "And you can live in Frankfort in your old Kentucky home" is a reference to the Kentucky state song, "My Old Kentucky Home".
  • Wakko refers to Oklahoma's capital city simply as "its city," by which natives call it, rather than Oklahoma City.
  • The song deviates from "Turkey In The Straw" in the final line, "That's all the capitals there are!", which is instead set to the classic musical couplet "Shave and a Haircut".


[edit] See also