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.
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.
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.