Writing in Toon

Of the many ridiculous comments John Kricfalusi made in last Sunday’s article “The Cartoon Show That’s Eating America,” by Daniel Cerone, the worst was: “Why can’t a sitcom writer write a cartoon? For the same reason he can’t write a symphony. Try writing a symphony on a typewriter. You can’t do it.”

What a crock!

Many of us who write cartoons are not sitcom writers: Compare the highly detailed description of sight gags and short verbal joke punctuations in an animation script with a dialogue-heavy sitcom script. We are cartoon writers and, as such, cannot become members of the Writers Guild of America because our work is under the jurisdiction of the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists .

Obviously, Kricfalusi is in his own little world listening to his own “little men.” He forgets that his mentors--those folks that he claims were the “creators” of their cartoons--all used (gasp!) writers ! Tex Avery’s cartoons were written by Heck Allen (who also wrote Western novels) and Rich Hogan. Chuck Jones used the talented Michael Maltese and Warren Foster as the writers of his cartoons.

Nor has Kricfalusi traveled any roads not taken by cartoon writers. The year before “Ren & Stimpy” appeared we wrote and co-created a show called “Zazoo U.” Times critic Charles Solomon said of it, “The casual insanity of ‘Zazoo U.’ is utterly unlike anything that’s ever been on Saturday morning.” Guess what--every show had a script! And the artists on the series (which included a few now working for Spumco) loved the visual gags written for the show.

Maybe Kricfalusi should hire writers--at least to help him read those bad contracts he signs and then complains about.

PAMELA HICKEY

DENNYS McCOY

Santa Monica