Wild Cartoon Kingdom - Controversy

Controversy

An unfavorable review of the debuting television series Animaniacs was featured in the March 1994 issue of the magazine. It was ghostwritten by John Kricfalusi, who assumed the name "Tom Paine" for the article.

Here is the article in its entirety:

Animaniacs (not worth even one crown)

Although we at Wild Cartoon Kingdom have not actually seen this cartoon, we felt that it was important to review it anyway. This is a godawful piece of trash. Don't watch this.

In true moron fashion, this cartoon is obviously written by scriptwriters who can't draw. More old jokes done badly...pies in the face...seltzer bottles...long outdated bits of vaudeville - this is the absolute worst use of animation. It just makes you sick.

I did accidentally hear the voices in a promo one saturday morning. More from the "Babs Bunny" school of disgusting, wretched voices. You know the kind - obnoxious, grating...the kind of voices that make your neck-skin crawl crawl and shiver. They're so bad you actually feel embarrassed for the actors. It's the same feeling you get watching your dad beat up by a neighbor. If you have to watch it, turn the sound off.

Where does this stuff come from? Who else?...Steven Spielberg. The guy thinks he is doing a homage to old cartoons, but he's just ruining our memories of the good stuff. We've got to get this guy out of cartoons. Like Bob Camp says, "Spielberg is not a funny guy...he wants to be Walt Disney, but he doesn't know how to make cartoons."

And why does this guy put his name on everything? Have you seen the billboards for the dinosaur cartoon? Aaaaaargh!!! Gimme a break! Pretty soon we'll be seeing billboards that say "Coming soon...a bucket of puke from Steven Spielberg!" or, "Don't miss the latest dried-out bloody-nose boogers from the man who gave you ET!" Better hide your dog's butt before "Steven" signs his name on it.

So we've heard that Warner Brothers is starting their own TV network...rumor has it that they might be taking their cartoons away from Fox to run on their own network...big loss.

Actually, we've a confession to make. After writing this review, we broke down and actually watched these cartoons to see if we were accurate. We were.

-Tom Paine, animator and film historian