Those Pesky Producers

Sam runs in to the kitchen where I am working on dinner and says, "Mom, it was Jamie Kellner." I am confused, I don't know a Jamie. Or a Kellner.

"It was Jamie Kellner, Mom," he says, pointing at the ipad. "He canceled the Animaniacs in 1998!" I tell him that I still don't know who he is talking about.

"He was an executive, the WB kind," he says matter-of-factly. Sam has made it quite clear that while he loves DVDs (specifically Volumes 1, 2, and 3 from his Aunt JT), what he'd really like is to watch his favorite show on television, you know — like on Boomerang? Or Cartoon Network? They should totally start airing new episodes.

"Why did he cancel them?" I ask, noticing Wikipedia open on the ipad.

"I don't know," he says, "but he was responsible." And that, friends, must be the gospel truth if he read it.

I suggest he write a letter to Mr. Jamie Kellner or to the WB. "Can we do that?" he asks.

"Sure. Why not?" I say, "We could start a 'Bring Back the Animaniacs' campaign."

"Maybe we can write to the others too?" He starts rattling off other names I've never heard of — Rob Paulsen, Jess Harnell, Tress MacNeille (the voices); Steven Spielberg…

I stop him and say, "Steven Spielberg?" He says, "Yep. He's the executive producer."

"Oh. Spielberg. Didn't he do some other stuff?" I ask him.

"I think so, another cartoon maybe?"[smile]

"Mom, can we go to Hollywood? I want to go to Warner Bros. to visit them." And he says Bros. so that it rhymes with 'toes.' I start to explain that Wakko, Yakko and Dot probably do not live at the Warner Bros. studio any longer because they're cartoons, but I don't want to see that smile dim.

"I'd like nothing more," I say instead and give him a hug.

In the early nineties, when Animaniacs was apparently everywhere? I owned a TV, but had no cable. I had never heard of Sam's "zany Warner trio" before he plucked them back into existence off of youtube. Luckily, Santa had heard of them. And she shops on ebay.