Secret Red Dwarf Theme Tune Lyrics Discovered After 27 Years

When I started researching the history of Animaniacs, I contacted creator Tom Ruegger to see if he could fill in some gaps. I expected a few sentences in response to my questions, but Mr. Ruegger sent back seven pages of awesomeness instead. So if you happen to be searching for the real story behind Animaniacs—which is getting a reboot on Hulu—you're in the right place.

IN THE BEGINNING

The history of Animaniacs actually begins with Tiny Toon Adventures, another animated show from Warner Bros. and executive producer Steven Spielberg. After Tiny Toons became a huge success, Spielberg asked producer Tom Ruegger and his team to work on a follow-up cartoon.

One idea Spielberg suggested was to make the popular Tiny Toons character Plucky Duck the star of the new show. Meanwhile, Ruegger had been developing characters based on the personalities of his three young sons. These two concepts were combined to create three brother ducks. However, the team soon realized that, between Disney’s Donald Duck, DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, and Warner Bros.' own Daffy Duck, there were already plenty of animated waterfowl on the market. Spielberg agreed, but said they needed to come up with “a big marquee name” to help sell the show.

Ruegger was inspired by the large “WB” logo on the water tower at the Warner Bros. studio. He proposed a group of siblings drawn in an animation style reminiscent of anthropomorphized animal characters from the 1930s, and called them the Warner Brothers. Although they have dog-like characteristics, the exact type of animal the Warners are meant to be is unknown. According to the show bible – a book filled with background information for the creative team on a TV show - their species is labeled as “Cartoonus Characterus.”

For a brief period, there were four Warner siblings—Yakky, Smakky, Wakky, and little sister, Dot. As the studio artists honed the designs, Yakky became Yakko, and Smakky and Wakky were melded into Wakko. After getting clearance from the Warner estate to use the family name, the show was off and running.

THE WARNER BROTHERS (AND THE WARNER SISTER)

Warner Bros.

In episode #65, "The Warners 65th Anniversary Special," we learn that the Warners were created in 1929 to be the sidekicks for Buddy, a real character from the early days of Warner Bros. Animation. Their only role in the Buddy cartoons was to pop out of unexpected places and use giant mallets to make a pancake out of the star. The Warners were soon given their own series of cartoons, but the resulting shorts were considered too incomprehensible for public consumption. The films were locked away in the Warner Bros. vault, and the Warner Brothers were locked inside the water tower at the Warner Bros. studio. Until the present day, when the Warners escaped.

In the Animaniacs comic book published by DC Comics, issue #33 reveals a long lost Warner sibling named Sakko Warner. The character's design was almost a carbon copy of glitter-throwing celebrity Rip Taylor. Sakko was only ever mentioned in the comic book, which was not written by the same team as the cartoon, so he's not considered part of the Animaniacs canon.

Animaniacs writer Paul Rugg did come up with an official fourth Warner as part of the story for the never-produced feature film, Wandering Warners We. Lakko Warner, as his name implies, is the untalented member of the family, who would have been fired by his own siblings during the course of the film.

Although she goes by Dot, producer/writer Sherri Stoner came up with the Warner Sister's full name: Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fanna Bo Besca the Third. Dot was voiced by Tress MacNeille, who had previously played Babs Bunny on Tiny Toons and Gadget on Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers. MacNeille’s extensive voice acting career includes many characters on The Simpsons, most notably Agnes Skinner, Principal Skinner’s mother.

Yakko was voiced by Rob Paulsen, a veteran voice actor best known before Animaniacs for playing Raphael on the wildly popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. Paulsen had previously voiced a handful of bit characters on Tiny Toons, and Ruegger thought he’d be perfect for Yakko on the new show. As part of the audition process, it wasn’t unusual for the same actor to try different voices for the same character, and with Paulsen this was no exception. Once auditions were completed for a role, Ruegger and casting director Andrea Romano would select the best five voices, and these five would be sent to Spielberg for the final decision. In Paulsen’s case, the Yakko deck was stacked in his favor as three of the final five voices were him. Not surprisingly, he got the job, and also went on to voice Dr. Otto von Scratchansniff, the studio psychologist, and the beloved, simpleton rodent, Pinky.

Of the Warners, the voice of Wakko was the most difficult to cast. During auditions, the producers said they were looking for “wacky,” so all the actors delivered a voice that was over-the-top crazy, but none were the right fit. On the last day of auditions, Ruegger brought his 1990 Almanac to the office, hoping to find some inspiration that might shake things up. Many wacky Wakko's later, they still didn't have the right voice. So during their last appointment of the morning, with voice actor Jess Harnell, Ruegger opened the almanac to a list of celebrities and asked Harnell to do his best impression of Elvis, Rodney Dangerfield, Jackie Gleason, Frank Sinatra, and other notable names. When the Beatles came up, Harnell proceeded to do every one of the Fab Four so well you could actually tell which individual band member he was mimicking at the moment. However, it was Harnell's Ringo that struck a chord with the producers, so after a few tweaks, that became the voice of Wakko.

WHAT'S MICKEY DOING UP THERE?

To promote Animaniacs before the show's premiere, a giant balloon in the shape of Yakko was placed on top of the water tower on the Warner Bros. lot. Unfortunately, no one told Bob Daley, who ran the studio. When he pulled into work that morning, he thought someone had put a bad Mickey Mouse balloon on the tower and ordered it removed. The inflatable Yakko was in place for less than 12 hours, and then popped shortly after he came down. Writer Paul Rugg was able to snap a photo to prove it happened.

After the balloon incident, Daley worked to ensure no one else would mistake the Warners for Mickey. Daley decided that Yakko and Wakko were too smooth and rounded. So while he watched, he had Ruegger add side whiskers to the drawings, which he felt would prevent confusion - and potential legal action. Ruegger and Warner Bros. Animation president Jean MacCurdy had to rush back to the animation studio with the changes, because the cartoon was already being drawn, with some segments in the can.

RETRACT-IMANIACS

Warner Bros.

While Animaniacs was being developed, there were many potential supporting characters that didn't make it on the show. One idea was to bring over The Flea Family, who appeared in a few episodes of Tiny Toons, but they were cut out pretty quickly. There was also Bossy Beaver, a workaholic beaver that just wanted to build “the best damn dam ever,” but his dim-witted sidekick, Doyle, would always screw things up. Bossy was based on Ken Boyer, an artist and director on Tiny Toons who was well known and respected for his strong work ethic. Spielberg thought the idea was too close to Pinky and the Brain, though, so the beavers got trimmed.

Nipsey and Russell, a pair of con-men raccoons that prowled the neighborhood at night, also got bagged after Spielberg felt there were already enough comedic duos on the show.

Another segment that never quite worked was As the Petri Dish Turns, a soap opera melodrama played out between single-cell organisms, all viewed through the lens of a microscope.

A CARTOON FOR ADULTS

Animaniacs premiered on Fox on September 13, 1993, and quickly became one of the highest-rated kids' shows on TV. Part of the appeal was that it was funny on two levels: Kids loved the slapstick, while their parents - and a very loyal following of college students - appreciated the wordplay and more “adult” humor peppered throughout the show. Whenever one of these risqué moments would come up, Yakko would often say, “Good night, everybody!”—almost as if he expected the show to be yanked off the air as soon as network execs heard the joke.

Here are some of the more “adult” moments in the show, including the infamous “fingerprints” joke (at 2:15):

Animaniacs moved to The WB beginning with episode 70. The Kids' WB block was aimed at a much younger audience, so even though ratings were still high, it wasn't doing well in the age group advertisers were trying to target. Orders for new episodes began to dwindle. The 99th and final episode aired on November 14, 1998.

THE SUPPORTING CAST

Slappy Squirrel, the cynical, retired cartoon squirrel who has no problem airing the dirty laundry of old Hollywood, was created and voiced by Sherri Stoner. Stoner got into show business as an actress, with bit parts on Little House on the Prairie, Knots Landing, and T.J. Hooker, while studying comedy with the famous improv group, The Groundlings. She was also hired to perform live-action scenes as a reference for Disney animators drawing Ariel in The Little Mermaid and Belle in Beauty and the Beast.

Skippy Squirrel, Slappy’s young nephew, was voiced by Nathan Ruegger, the eldest son of Tom Ruegger, and the inspiration for Yakko Warner. He was also the voice of baby Plucky Duck on Tiny Toons, who was famous for flushing various items in the toilet and watching the “water go down the hooooole.” He has since become an accomplished filmmaker with a handful of independent movies under his belt.

Mr. Skullhead was a simplified skeleton character based on a sketch Sherri Stoner had been drawing since childhood. The character first appeared as the skull-shaped barrette worn in Elmyra's hair in Tiny Toons. In Animaniacs, he became the star of the “Good Idea, Bad Idea” sketches. The narrator for the sketches was Tom Bodett, the spokesman for Motel 6 who promises to “leave the light on for you.” He also narrated Mime Time, a segment that showed a mime performer getting pummeled just for being a mime.

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Mindy and Buttons were initially cut from the show until Spielberg's kids saw a drawing of the characters and loved them. Mindy's catchphrases, including “Ok. I love you! Bye-bye!”, were written by another Groundling alumna, Deanna Oliver, and the role was performed by Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson.

Although they were strays, cat Rita and sweet-but-dumb dog Runt were voiced by two actors with quite a pedigree. Rita was voiced by Bernadette Peters, who has won two Tonys and been nominated for three Grammys. Runt was played by Frank Welker, whose prolific voice acting career has made him one of the biggest Hollywood stars you've never heard of. Since 1980, the 97 movies Welker has worked on – including the Transformers sequels, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? - have grossed more than $12.9 billion worldwide.

Les Miseranimals, an animal-centric version of Les Miserables, was a highlight of the Rita and Runt segments. Here's one of Rita's solos from the episode:

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Minerva Mink — originally called Marilyn Mink — was voiced by comedian and actor Julie Brown. Minerva only appeared in a few segments, though, because she was thought to be too sexual for the young audience. In fact, upon the request of Jean MacCurdy, one Minvera segment was recalled, redrawn, and re-shot to decrease the mink's cleavage.

Colin, better known to fans as “The Randy Beaman Kid”, was a little boy who came out of his house to tell us all about the crazy misadventures of his friend, Randy Beaman. Colin was voiced by young Colin Wells, son of one of the show’s writers, Deanna Oliver. You can check out a compilation of Colin’s tall tales on YouTube:

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At the sight of the Warner Bros. studio’s buxom, blond nurse, Yakko and Wakko would always exclaim, “Helloooo, Nurse!” The catchphrase was written by Tom Ruegger for Buster Bunny on Tiny Toons. Since Buster never used it on the show, Ruegger gave it to the Warners instead. Because of the recurring gag, the nurse, who previously had no name, became known as Hello Nurse.

Here are Yakko and Wakko singing about their favorite health care professional:

PINKY AND THE BRAIN

Ruegger modeled Pinky after Warner Bros. Animation director and artist Eddie Fitzgerald, who had the same sunny disposition, and often said two of Pinky’s catch phrases - “Narf!” and “Egad!” In fact, the character of Pinky was so similar to Fitzgerald that he auditioned for the voice of Pinky. Another notable name up for the part was John Astin, also known as Gomez on the original Addams Family TV show. But when Rob Paulsen auditioned, he gave Pinky a loose Cockney accent, and the producers knew they'd found what they were looking for.

Brain is based on another Warner Bros. Animation artist and writer named Tom Minton. The original designs of the two mice were taken from caricatures of Eddie and Tom drawn by Batman: The Animated Series producer and designer Bruce Timm. So even though the resemblance is uncanny, the look of Brain was not modeled after Orson Welles. The Wellesian voice, however, was no coincidence, and can be attributed to Maurice LaMarche.

Warner Bros.

An experienced voice actor, LaMarche would often warm up by quoting a legendary recording of a very frustrated Orson Welles trying to lay down a voice-over track for a frozen peas commercial. When LaMarche saw the concept art for Brain, he immediately thought of Welles, and so he just did the impression he’d been honing over the years. The episode “Yes, Always” has a rather extensive, nearly word-for-word reenactment of the Welles outtake.

Pinky and the Brain got their own spin-off show that ran for 65 episodes from 1995-1998 on The WB. The show followed the two mice as they continued to try to take over the world, but they also had to occasionally save the world from the evil schemes of Snowball, a hamster from the same lab, who was voiced by renowned actor Roddy McDowall.

Eventually, the studio wanted the show to be a little more conventional, so they suggested turning it into a domestic sitcom. They even cast Dick Clark as the voice of a Kramer-esque quirky neighbor. Upset about the move, the writers instead took the opportunity to make fun of the old sitcom cliches, which didn't make the Warner Bros. execs very happy. Soon after, P&B was shuffled to Saturday mornings.

From there, the show was reworked as Pinky, Elmyra, & the Brain, borrowing a character from Tiny Toons to act as the duo's new owner. While 13 episodes were created, only six were shown under that title; the rest were dispersed as part of a clip show that featured many different segments from Warner Bros. cartoons, called The Cat & Birdy Warneroonie PinkyBrainy Big Cartoonie Show, which later became The Cat & Bunny Warnernoonie SuperLooney Big Cartoonie Show. That show lasted until 2000.

Pinky and the Brain are famous for their bevy of quotable catchphrases. One of Ruegger's favorites:

Brain: “Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?”
Pinky: “I think so, Brain, but if they called them sad meals, kids wouldn't buy them.”

THE MUSIC

One of the highlights of the show was the music. Almost every episode featured original songs, which kept a team of composers, led by Richard Stone, very busy. But their hard work paid off with five Daytime Emmys for various musical categories.

One of the difficult tasks Stone faced on the show was coming up with music that matched the lyrics penned by the writing staff. For example, the words to the Pinky and the Brain theme song were written by Ruegger to the tune of “Singing in the Rain” from the 1952 musical. If you sing along in your head, it’s amazing how well it matches up:

They're Pinky and the Brain / I'm singin' in the rain
They're Pinky and the Brain / Just singin' in the rain
One is a genius / What a glorious feeling
The other's insane / I'm happy again
They're laboratory mice / I walk down the lane
Their genes have been spliced / With a happy refrain
They're dinky / I'm singin'
They're Pinky and the Brain / I'm singin' in the rain

Naturally they couldn’t use the film’s music due to licensing issues, so it was up to Stone to compose a song that worked. And the fact that we can all sing the Pinky and the Brain song today is a testament to his talent.

Perhaps the most famous song from the show, "Yakko's World," was written by Randy Rogel, a screenwriter working on Warner's Batman: The Animated Series at the time.

While helping his son with geography homework, Rogel started going over a globe and naming all the countries. When he noticed that “United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama” rhymed, he thought it sounded like the beginning of a song. So Rogel wrote out the lyrics set to the The Mexican Hat Dance Song, and gave it to Ruegger because he thought it might be a good fit for Animaniacs. Ruegger and Spielberg loved it, and shortly after, Rogel became a staff writer for the show.

Rob Paulsen, the voice of Yakko, can still sing "Yakko’s World" perfectly nearly 20 years later.

(While you’re at it, check out Paulsen’s weekly podcast where he often has some of his old friends from Animaniacs stop by for a visit.)

FEATURE FILM FOLLIES

In 1999, Warner Bros. released Wakko's Wish, a 90-minute film starring the Warner siblings and most of the cast from the show. The original title for the film was It's a Wakko, Wakko, Wakko, Wakko Wish, an homage to the classic road movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. However, the studio’s marketing team insisted the title be shorter, so Ruegger knocked it down to Wakko's Wacko Wish. The marketing team cut it even further.

The movie was considered for theatrical release after it was well received by test audiences, but Warner Bros. opted to release it unceremoniously on VHS instead. The movie has yet to have a wide release DVD, though you can buy it through Amazon.

Ruegger’s website features quite a few concept posters drawn by Bob Doucette for Animaniacs films that never were. For example, the World War II epic, This Means Warners, Revolutionary Warners set during 1776, a play on Oliver Twist called Little Orphan Warners, and Winter Warner Land, which would have seen the siblings go to the North Pole to harass Santa and his elves.

Some ideas from the unproduced film Hooray for Hollywood were used in Hooray for North Hollywood, a two-part episode of the show that aired in 1998. And The Road to Bohemia had many plot points that were integrated into Wakko's Wish.

A special thanks to Tom Ruegger for providing me with amazing information and access to the Animaniacs story. Go check out his website for even more great Warner Bros. Animation memories. This post originally appeared in 2012.

Is the truth really out there? The X-Files began its original nine-season run on September 10, 1993. Though Fox Mulder and Dana Scully returned to our televisions in 2016—and will be returning for an 11th season tonight—here are 20 facts about the iconic series that will make you a believer.

1. THE IDEA FOR THE SHOW ORIGINATED WITH A PUBLIC OPINION SURVEY.

Chris Carter’s interest in the paranormal was piqued when he read Pulitzer Prize-winning writer/psychiatrist/Harvard Medical School professor John E. Mack’s analysis of a 1991 Roper Poll survey, which stated that at least 3.7 million Americans may have been abducted by aliens. “Everybody wants to hear that story,” Carter told Entertainment Weekly. “[Abduction] is tantamount to a religious experience.”

2. CHRIS CARTER WAS INSPIRED BY ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (AND SEVERAL OTHER SOURCES).

When asked about his intentions in creating The X-Files, Chris Carter told Twitch that, “I'm a child of the Watergate era, so I question authority and mistrust it, that was in my blood. One of my favorite movies is All the President's Men; the most amazing thing about it, and it's watchable time and again, is that we know the outcome. Watching it, is where the entertainment value lies. So I knew I would be exploring these things, though I didn't know I would be doing it for nine years.”

In the more than 20 years since The X-Files made its premiere, Carter has cited a number of movies and television shows as helping to inspire its style and tone. Among them: Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Twin Peaks, The Thin Blue Line, Prime Suspect, Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View, and The Silence of the Lambs.

3. SCULLY WAS PARTLY MODELED ON CLARICE STARLING.

Fox

Carter has been vocal about his admiration for Jonathan Demme’s Oscar-winning film The Silence of the Lambs and the influence it had on The X-Files. “It's not a mistake that Dana Scully has red hair like Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs,” Carter told Smithsonian magazine.

4. JODIE FOSTER MADE A CAMEO.

In the fourth season episode “Never Again,” Jodie Foster (who won an Oscar in 1992 for her role as Clarice Starling) provided the voice of Betty, a homicidal tattoo (yes, a homicidal tattoo).

5. DAVID DUCHOVNY PUSHED FOR JENNIFER BEALS TO PLAY SCULLY.

David Duchovny and the Flashdance star became acquainted when the two attended Yale. “I used to see David on the street—he tried to pick me up on several occasions,” Beals recalled. “And I said, ‘Um, I’m living with somebody.' And then I ended up taking this acting class in New York and who walks in the door but David Duchovny. And he’s like, ‘I swear I am not stalking you!’ And we became really good friends. He’s a real sweetheart … When he was doing The X-Files he had talked to me about doing that, but I think Gillian was much better suited for that part than me.”

6. IN REAL LIFE, SCULLY IS THE BELIEVER.

In a 1994 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Gillian Anderson admitted that Duchovny was a skeptic and she was the believer. “Psychokinesis appeals to me,” she said. “ESP, telling the future, I love that stuff.”

7. ANDERSON AND DUCHOVNY DID NOT GET ALONG.

Fox

Though Anderson and Duchovny are tight nowadays, that friendship—while based on the work they did together—didn’t really come about until after The X-Files ended. “The crucible of doing that show made monsters out of both of us,” Duchovny told Variety, saying that it wasn’t until filming the 2008 movie The X-Files: I Want to Believe that the two really clicked. “Once we got to step back, it was like, ‘Oh, wow, we really like each other. I didn’t know that was going to happen.’ The way we work together has changed. Whatever rapport we have as actors, we earned. It’s nice to be able to play that without ever even feeling like you’re playing it.”

“Our relationship has definitely become a proper friendship over the last few years,” Anderson added. “I think we’re more on each other’s side. We’re more aware of the other’s needs, wants, concerns, and mindful to take those into consideration—and just sharing more about our experiences in the moment, under the sudden realization that we’re both in this together, and wouldn’t it be nice if it were a collaboration?”

8. SCULLY WAS WRITTEN AS THE CENTER OF THE SHOW.

While it’s often stated that Carter’s goal in creating Mulder and Scully was to subvert gender stereotypes, he says that wasn’t a conscious part of the plan. “It just made sense to me in an instinctive way, that she would be the scientist,” he said. “I don't know what that says about me, but I always saw it that way.”

“It was always a man and a woman,” Carter added. “I'm interested in strong women characters. For me, Scully is the center of our show, she is the skeptic in all of us. Science is at the root of science fiction, so Mulder, while he seems to be often right and it might seem to be his show, I always think of Scully as the grounding influence and the thing that keeps the solar system of the show in place.”

9. SCULLY’S CHARACTER HAS HAD A BIG INFLUENCE ON THE TELEVISION LANDSCAPE.

Anderson told the Chicago Tribune that Carter “fought tooth and nail to get me rather than what used to be the version of women [on] television back then, which was very different. And ironically it had an international effect on women and on television and how women were not just perceived but how they behaved … This funny old series we were doing had a huge influence on the history of television in many ways, from the lighting on television to the kinds of stories that were being told to the characters. The amount of things you see right now where they even just have a male and female as investigators. It’s almost a joke. It’s like, somebody should come with something different now!”

10. CARTER DIDN’T THINK OF THE SHOW AS SCIENCE FICTION.

“I actually resisted the ‘science fiction’ label in the beginning, because the show is actually based in science,” Carter told WIRED. “If it weren’t for Scully, I think the show could be just kind of loopy. So the science and the accuracy of the science is all-important to the success of the storytelling. I think Steven Spielberg called Close Encounters of the Third Kind ‘speculative science’ and I would say The X-Files, for me, has always fit more into that category.”

11. THE SHOW EMPLOYED A NUMBER OF SCIENTISTS.

In an effort to make sure the series got its science right, the producers hired a number of scientists as consultants, including University of Maryland microbiologist Anne Simon, who was hired at the end of the first season, and came back aboard for the tenth season reboot.

“You’re not there to tell the writer, ‘Chris, you can’t have a Flukeman that’s half-man, half-worm,’” she explained of her role in the production. “But you want to come up with something reasonable.” (Simon is also the author of The Real Science Behind the X-Files: Microbes, Meteorites, and Mutants.)

In addition, Carter has looked to his brother for help. “He’s a professor at MIT, and so I went to him for a lot of technical stuff,” he told WIRED. “A lot of the things that are in the pilot came directly from him. I had written something about time and space, and he corrected me on my terminology.”

12. THE CIGARETTE SMOKING MAN WAS ORIGINALLY CAST AS AN EXTRA.

Carin Baer/FOX

When actor William B. Davis first appeared on The X-Files, it was as a background actor with no dialogue. At that time neither Davis nor the producers knew that he would end up becoming the show’s main antagonist. “There was a time when I wasn’t in any episodes, then all of a sudden I had a line or two and I thought, 'That was interesting,’” Davis told the Palm Beach Post in 1996. “And that just gradually increased. Then, finally I had a big scene where Mulder comes after me with a gun. That was the turning point where the producers decided this character is really interesting and I guess they felt I was OK to handle it.”

“The character is very simply written and William is called upon to carry a lot of the weight of the character,” added writer/executive producer Frank Spotnitz. “He is utterly convincing. Even before he had words, he had looks where you could see his mind processing what he was watching and you could see there was intelligence behind his eyes.”

13. THE CIGARETTE SMOKING MAN WASN’T A SMOKER.

At least he wasn’t when he was cast in the role. But he had been. He had kicked the habit nearly 20 years before taking on the role, after smoking for 25 years. Though he eventually was given herbal cigarettes to play the part, the cigarettes were real for his first few appearances, and the job required him to inhale. “That was beginning to wake up some long buried desires,” Davis said.

14. MITCH PILEGGI’S SHAVED HEAD ALMOST COST HIM THE ROLE OF WALTER SKINNER.

Pileggi auditioned three times to land the role of FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner. "I thought, this guy [Chris Carter] either hates me or I must be a totally bad actor,” Pileggi recalled. “But he told me later it was because my shaved head was too extreme for an FBI agent.”

15. SKINNER MARRIED SCULLY’S STAND-IN.

Pileggi met his wife, Arlene Warren, at work; she was Scully’s stand-in. The couple married in 1997. From 1998 to 2002, Warren made a number of appearances on the show, playing Skinner’s assistant.

16. LUCY LAWLESS WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE A RECURRING ROLE.

In 2001, shortly after Xena: Warrior Princess came to an end, news broke that Lucy Lawless had signed on for The X-Files. Though the plan was that her character, Super Soldier Shannon McMahon, would be a recurring one, a high-risk pregnancy forced her to bow out after appearing in just two episodes. On May 7, 2002, Lawless gave birth to a healthy baby boy (but did not return to the series).

17. IT LED TO A SHORT-LIVED SPINOFF.

Fox

The Lone Gunmen, a trio of conspiracy theorists who ran their own magazine, proved popular enough with audiences that they were given their own series in 2001. Just 13 episodes aired before the show was cancelled, though they were given the unusual opportunity to address the series finale’s cliffhanger in the ninth season of The X-Files.

18. THE X-FILES GAVE BIRTH TO BREAKING BAD AS WE KNOW IT.

Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan (who also helped to create The Lone Gunmen) logged several years as a writer on The X-Files. Among his many credits on the show is the season six episode “Drive,” which stars Bryan Cranston as Patrick Crump, a “Monster-of-the-Week” who kidnaps Mulder. Cranston’s performance stayed with Gilligan over the years, and is what led to his being cast as Walter White on Breaking Bad. "You don't have to like him,” Gilligan said of the character. “But you need to sympathize and feel empathy and sorrow for him at the end of the hour.”

Other future Breaking Bad stars Aaron Paul (Jesse), Dean Norris (Hank), Raymond Cruz (Tuco), Danny Trejo (Tortuga), and Michael Bowen (Uncle Jack) also appeared on The X-Files.

19. ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY PRONOUNCED THE SERIES D.O.A.

In a preview of the 1993 fall television lineup, Entertainment Weekly declared that “This show is a goner,” citing its genre and Friday night time slot as two indicators that the series wouldn’t last. Today, it’s one of the longest-running sci-fi series in television history.

20. CARTER WANTS TO BELIEVE.

“I'm definitely a skeptic,” Carter told Twitch of his belief in extraterrestrials, “but like Mulder, I want to believe.”