Better yet, these 22 episodes culled from P&TB's four-season run (1995-98) demonstrate how the show's basic concept--two talking lab mice ("one is a genius, the other's insane") and their nightly attempts at global domination--lent itself to a broad spectrum of hilariously ingenious plots, with no restrictions of timeframe. So you've got episodes in ancient Egypt, Napoleonic France, and 1940s Vienna, along with contemporary schemes and shorter, time-filler episodes (like "Cheese Roll Call") that qualify as mini-masterpieces of educational comedy. "A Pinky and the Brain Christmas" is a bona-fide sentimental classic (offering proof that the Brain's got a soft heart, after all), and the polar-opposite pairing of Pinky and the Brain is just about perfect, largely due to the voice talents of Maurice LaMarche (expertly channeling Orson Welles as the Brain) and Emmy-winner Rob Paulsen as Pinky (both seen, to splendid effect, in disc 2's behind-the-scenes featurette). Additional voice talents include Roddy MacDowall (as the Brain's nemesis, Snowball) and Ernest Borgnine, but the show's primary strength is its go-for-broke writing, brilliant animation (a flawless homage to Warner Bros. tradition, yet uniquely styled to match the material), and music scores (mostly by Richard Stone) that pay tribute to the late, great WB cartoon composer Carl Stalling while incorporating frequent passages from the classical repertoire. All in all, Pinky and the Brain is perfect entertainment for the young and young-at-heart, destined for cult-favorite status as one of the best overlooked TV series of the 1990s. As Pinky might say, "Poit! Narf! Oh, this is SO much fun!" --Jeff Shannon