http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WMG/PinkyAndTheBrain

Pinky and the Brain are in Purgatory

Pinky is the genius.

Also note that being insane doesn't necessarily make you stupid, now does it?

Pinky's several own attempts at world domination were very nearly successful, stopped at the last minute by none other then The Brain, usually simply because he refuses to look past the fact that it is Pinky doing something, so it must be stupid. Many of Brain's schemes are ruined by his own mistakes, or because he overlooks any advice and reproves action from Pinky which, despite usually being ridiculous, generally turns out to be right. All of this goes to prove that Pinky is a genius, repeatedly foiled by the Brain's insanity.

Advertisement: Plus, there was that one episode where Pinky momentarily displayed telekinetic abilities, leaving Brain completely dumbfounded and in awe.

The crossover episode "In the Garden of Mindy" also seems to hint this, with replacament of Pinky with Mindy leading to the following change in lyrics: "They're Mindy and the Brain, Mindy and the Brain, one is small child, the other's... the Brain", as if "insane" was meant to be atributed to Brain all along. Rebuttal, though I agree with the WMG: If Brain was the insane one, they could have left that bit the same, and the pause could have been to indicate the singer improvising. On the flip-side, it could have been a case of Don't Explain the Joke. If they made the Brain's insanity (and by extension, Pinky's genius) overt, it would be less funny.

YES , seconded! Imagining this makes the show even more hilarious.

, seconded! Imagining this makes the show even more hilarious. The episode "Mouse Of La Macha" casting The Brain as Don Quixote would more-or-less confirm that he is in fact the insane one...except that A- he's clearly Musical Don Quixote rather than Book Don Quixote, and B- it's in a story that The Brain himself is telling, implying that he knows exactly how bad his chances of taking over the world are.

Advertisement: SO TRUE! Pinky Is Totally The Genius!

Pinky Is Totally The Genius! The first segment they appeared in on Animaniacs featured Brain going on a game show and losing a question that Pinky knew the answer to. Even in the beginning, that's the idea they were going for!

It's possible that Pinky's supposed "nonsense" words are actually normal English, and the Brain just hears them as things like "Narf".

Finally Jossed .

Pinky knows exactly what Brain is pondering.

Alternatively Pinky is a Troll and spouts random answers to the question because he enjoys seeing Brain getting frustrated.

There was an episode from Pinky's point of view where explained that he really did have a good idea what Brain was pondering, but his train of thought tended to veer off on odd, but perfectly logical (for a certain definition of "logical"), directions after that.

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Pinky deliberately keeps the Brain in check.

The easiest way is Pinky is the genius (saves the world on a nightly basis) and The Brain is insane (he's a mouse that tries to take over the world dozens of times no matter how often he fails).

Really doubtful, in a Christmas Episode Pinky tells Santa Claus that Brain has the world's best interests at heart, and he's not really a bad person. Though you could still make the case that Brain would be a terrible world leader, and Pinky knows this.

Well, Pinky is absent-minded, but definately not insane.

Jossed .

Pinky is Adam Savage, and the Brain is Jamie Hyneman.

Elmyra is the spawn of Satan.

Jossed, I think - we actually see her father in two Tiny Toons episodes. Or is he an incarnation of Satan? What else would you expect from a Duff?



Pinky, Elmyra, and the Brain is a hallucination.

Pinky and the Brain are both geniuses, and both insane.

The citizens of Brain's world are, on the whole, quietly in support of his plans for world domination

Pinky is kinky

Fun fact: In the Dutch dub of the series the intro states that they are kinky not dinky (probably because there aren't a lot of words in the Dutch language that rhyme with Pinky.)

Elmyra is the daughter of Elmer Fudd.

Wrong show, and Jossed anyway; not only is Elmyra's father seen, but the only Tiny Toons character descended from a Looney Toon was Gogo.

They have to work off their mortal sins through their constant attempts to take over the world. A bit of an odd way of working off sins, but there you go. Might also explain why the entrance to Hades was just a walk away in "A Pinky and the Brain Halloween".The theme song says "One is a genius, the other's insane," but it doesn't say which, and megalomania has "mania" in it. What more need be said? According to Wikipedia, rather a lot. ...He just doesn't give a fuck. His nightly entertainment comes from spouting the first thing that comes into his head whenever the question is asked. He probably has a notebook full of them somewhere. Same with all the "do you know what this means" and "guess the plan" segments.In a case of Obfuscating Stupidity taken to extremes, Pinky plays the part of loyal sidekick, but in fact waits for the precise moment to cause Brain's plans to fail — or, more commonly, to cause Brain to foil his own plan. This rather relies on the "Pinky is the genius" theory, but is not a necessary conclusion thereof.A myth involving brain-swapping went horribly, horribly wrong. This of course makes the Brain also the Eggman, the Walrus and the Carpenter; unfortunately, mice can't grow moustaches.Nuff said.Acme Labs was never turned into a Disney Store, Elmyra never got transferred from Acme Looniversity to Chuck Norris Grammar School, and Pinky and Brain aren't living in Elmyra's house in order to hide from Wally Faust - it's all just a bad dream that Brain's having back in the lab, just like the events depicted in "You'll Never Eat Food Pellets in This Town Again" and the Animaniacs short where he was the Hip Hippos' baby.Or in a worse-case version of the above theory, Wally Faust has already captured the mice, and the events depicted in PEatB are just a hallucination they're experiencing as he experiments on them.Brain is definitely the Mad Scientist variety, combining scientific genius with megalomania . Pinky is more of a Mad Artist - he does have his flashes of brilliant insight but also far too many Cloudcuckoolander moments to be all there. (Plus, it's fun to think of Pinky as being dismissive of Brain's scientific endeavors - think of him as a Seen It All Deadpan Snarker and the show becomes that much more funny to watch.)Even at his worst, Brain has been shown to be not all that bad and is even willing to admit his mistakes when he sees he's gone too far with something. People realize this and, while they do expect they'll have his eccentricities to deal with, they see him as a decent leader. However, to speak out as such would get one in some trouble, so they settle for letting him go about his tasks largely unopposed and even help him by pretending not to see through his Paper-Thin Disguise He loves being bopped around by Brain, and probably finds him a Romantic Abuser . That would account for all the Ho Yay on the show and why he stays with Brain...plus, in the Halloween episode, Pinky is tortured by Mr. Itch (The Devil) and laughs wildly the whole time, even screaming "AGAIN! AGAIN!!" after being shaken in a paint mixer. This later prompts Mr. Itch to inquire of a smoldering, barbequed Pinky, "Isn't there ANY kind of torture you don't like?!" The answer was no, "The only real torture... is being away from my best friend Brain ."Only he says nonsense words instead of cusswords. (TROZ!)The face, the voice, the name—c'mon people! Seems in trying to defy her father's (or "daddy-waddy-head's") hatred of " wabbits " she took it to the opposite extreme.

Pinky and Brain's personalities are the results of having been experimented on.

I always assumed that was Canon

Pinky developed nerve damage on his head...

Pinky is an agent of Nyarlathotep.

The Brain is an example of The Extremist being right and he is proven by none other than Freakazoid!

Brain secretly owns and runs Pixar

Brain's goal is part of the science experiment.

If Brain ever succeeded, Pinky would be The Man Behind the Man

The Warner Brothers Execs planned the events between Pinky and the Brain and Pinky, Elmyra and the brain

The themesong clearly says she bough a discount turtle but ended up with more and shows Pinky and the Brain hiding in the turtle's shell, elmyra only found out about them after she took the turtle home.

Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain takes place in an Alternate Timeline where Precious the Cat took over the world.

"They're laboratory mice/Their genes have been spliced"... And though we don't really get to see this happen, we do get to see the results. Brain became a genius via Flowers for Algernon -esque experiments designed to improve his intelligence, which also gave him a dim view of humanity in general. Similar experiments were tried on Pinky, but they messed with his brain wiring instead of improving him....from all the times Brain bopped him.In the earlier episodes, Pinky was afraid when Brain threatened him, but as the series went on he started finding it fun. It's because all those whacks to his skull deadened most of his pain receptors, so now all Pinky experiences is a rush of dizziness along with a few pretty, swirling colors.Whether or not he is aware of it is unknown, or what Nyarly's reasons behind it are, but it is clear that Pinky is an agent of chaos that directly or indirectly manages to foul up a lot of the Brain's world-conquest plots.The shows crossover from time to time, so they may live in the same world. In a Freakzoid episode detailing his origins, one section has the superhero end up going back in time and he ends up stopping Pearl Harbor. When he ends up in the present, we see the changes made: Sharon Stone is a competent actor, Rush Limbaugh is a bleeding-heart liberal, EuroDisney is packed, cold fusion works and there are no Chevy Chase movies. We then cut back to the emergency that Freakzoid was trying to stop before he ended up in time, saving the preisdent's flight. Who is the President? Brain. (Pink was piloting the plane after the pilots escaped) While he may not rule the whole world, he is still probably the most powerful person in authority and considering everything good that happened, who's to say it wasn't because of him?His plan in "Brain's Song" (a plan inspired by seeing a Disney movie ): "We shall produce the saddest Tear Jerker ever, broadcast the movie worldwide, and leave the planet steeped in such depression, theyll be putty in our hands." Well, since then, what studio has arisen with the power to do just that? His first attempt may have failed, but he's getting a lot closer to his goal every year...Brain's goal of taking over the world is very consistent: he tries it every night, seeing if he'll get a different result each night. Sounds oddly like a science experiment. What if the people who experiment on them in fact have instilled this goal in him on purpose? Or maybe they're seeing if increasing intelligence in lab mice can result in mousy world dominion? They're aware of what he's doing and are working off a hypothesis! Brain's world dominion attempts are being entered in as data for the scientists!The only real way to unify the "Pinky is a Genius" theory with Freakazoid. In the Alternate History on Freakazoid, Pinky decided to let Brain succeed (or even arranged for one of his plans to "accidentally" work). He then began manipulating Brain into making the best policy decisions.They blew up Acme Labs and forced the mice to go to a pet store, then tricked Elmyra into going into the store, who would obviously by the "cute little" mice.If you recall in the 3 part episode, Brainwashed, Pinky and Brain were trying to stop Precious's plans to use the Schmeerskahoven dance for world conquest. Unfortunately, the two mice failed to stop her in this timeline. This explains why Acme Labs was still in ruins in the intro.