Five Times Pinky and the Brain Almost Actually Did Take Over the World
Night after night, Pinky and the Brain plotted ways to take over the world. From melting the polar ice caps, to controlling radio waves, to posing as union leader Jimmy Hoffa, they had a seemingly endless array of plans for global domination. But thanks to Brain’s arrogance, Pinky’s dim-wittedness or a little bit of both, they failed every time.
There were, however, a few times those little laboratory mice came remarkably close to becoming the overlords of every last member of humankind. Here are the five times they got the closest…
Bubba Bo Bob Brain
The Plan: The Brain becomes a country music sensation known as “Bubba Bo Bob Brain,” and he puts subliminal messages in his songs that encourage people to make him their leader.
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The Close Call: On the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, Brain’s subliminal message is about to take hold when Pinky mispronounces Brain’s country singer name for the umpteenth time. This infuriates Brain so much that he rips into Pinky, telling him to forget both the name and him altogether. Unfortunately, this message is delivered to Bubba Bo Bob Brain’s fans as well, causing them to completely forget about him and his subliminal messages.
The Plan: Pinky and the Brain pose as elves in Santa’s workshop to plant a hypnotic doll under every kid’s Christmas tree.
The Close Call: The hypnotic dolls do end up in every Christmas-celebrating house on Earth, and Brain even begins the broadcast in which he’s going to mesmerize everyone into following him. But that’s also the exact moment when he discovers a heartfelt note that Pinky wrote to Santa, asking him to give Brain control of the world. Brain is so touched by the gesture that he decides not to take over the world by corrupting Christmas. Instead, he uses the broadcast to wish everyone a happy holiday.
Pinky’s Turn
The Plan: Open up an oyster petting zoo in a small town (this plan was conceived by Pinky).
The Close Call: When the petting zoo becomes a local sensation, Pinky convinces the locals to all wear shiny pants. Once the shiny pants take off, Pinky is sought out by a retiring media mogul to become his successor. Pinky then transforms the CNN-like channel into an all jug band music channel, which endears him to President Bill Clinton. Clinton names Pinky as the Federal Reserve Chairman, and Brain finally steps in to seize the moment — which is exactly when things go awry.
Brain conceives of a plan where a satellite will deprogram the snooze alarm of every clock radio in the country. The problem is, the satellite only works on radios with a bandwidth modulation of 3.2 megahertz, and during Pinky’s press conference recommending that everyone get this kind of clock radio, he’s unable to say “bandwidth modulation.” Instead, he says “sandwich population,” “panda bear sensation” and lots of other nonsense that quickly gets him canned by his jug-band-loving boss.
It’s Only a Paper World
The Plan: Create an exact replica of the earth made out of papier-mâché and convince everyone to move to the replica by giving them a free T-shirt.
The Close Call: As Brain explains, no human being can resist a free T-shirt. And so, the plan goes perfectly, leaving Pinky and the Brain as the last two beings on Earth and Brain free to rule. Unfortunately, the original Earth is smashed by a meteor and Pinky and the Brain have to quickly seek refuge on the papier-mâché Earth.
Freakazoid Is History!
The Plan: Unknown
The Close Call: The time Brain was most successful wasn’t even on his own show. In an episode of the superhero parody show Freakazoid, Freakazoid goes back in time and prevents the bombing of Pearl Harbor. When he returns to the present, he discovers a number of changes in the new continuity, including Sharon Stone being a highly decorated actor and Rush Limbaugh being a bleeding heart liberal.
But the biggest change is that Brain is now president. The joke only lasts a few seconds before the episode ends — and how he assumed power is never revealed — but in some alternate reality, Brain really did get to be in charge. And if those changes were because of him, it sounds like that genius little lab mouse was always cut out for the job.
