Death (also known as the Grim Reaper) stars opposite the Warners in the episode "Meatballs or Consequences." As his name implies, he is the personification of death itself. He is voiced by Jess Harnell.
Appearance[]
Death is a skeleton who wears a cloak and has green eyes. He also wears a belt with an hour-glass on it and carries around a scythe. In the reboot, his head is obscured in the darkness of the robe.
Personality[]
Death is a pompous, rude personification of death itself who takes his job very seriously. Despite his rude, domineering persona; he is a frail loser who succumbs easily to the childish insanity of Yakko, Wakko, and Dot Warner. He is also quite gullible (he manages to miss that the Warners' "Guess Who!" bit is an excuse for them to cheat at his checkers game).
History[]
Animaniacs (Original Series)[]
After Wakko eats one too many Swedish meatballs in an eating contest at the Swedish Meatball Convention, Death, who is among the many spectators, reveals himself, and announces that he finds Wakko to be "living-impaired", and then attempts to take him off to the realm of the dead, only for Yakko and Dot to tag along, insisting that they want to stay together as siblings.
Ultimately, he makes a deal with Yakko and Dot - he will let them go with Wakko if they manage to defeat him in a chess match. Yakko, claiming that chess is "unknown" to him and his siblings, insists that they play checkers instead. Yakko and Dot manage to win - by cheating.
To their surprise, Death claims both of them dead in addition, stating that should he lose a match, the winners would be claimed dead as well; a rule that he did not inform them of intentionally. Following this, the Warners continually pester and torment him until he offers to make them alive again. Yakko insists they would rather stay with him - prompting the Grim Reaper to run off in terror, leaving his robe behind. As such, the Warners return to the world of the living.
Later on in part one of Hooray for North Hollywood, Death appears working at Warner Bros. to "greet" writers to a painful meeting with Thaddeus Plotz.
Animaniacs (Reboot)[]
A slightly redesigned and fully cloaked Death appears in the theme song of the 2020 Animaniacs reboot. He presents the Warners with their new series contracts.
Trivia[]
- Unlike most of the other characters in the series, he is drawn with five fingers on his hands instead of four.
- A similar premise of the Grim Reaper being tormented by children would later be used in Cartoon Network's The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy.