An Urgent Plea to the King of Cartoons

Your Highness,

We of the Cartoon Kingdom don't ask for much. If I may be so bold, I'd say your loyal subjects have been very patient with you lately. Even with the constant famine, plagues, uncontrollable fires, and bloodshed from invading kingdoms, we've managed to keep our chins up-those of us who haven't suffered from the massive outbreak of chin-specific leprosy, anyway.

While most of us can't recall how you rose to power, and are unable to research this fact due to the razing of our many libraries and museums, we can only assume you come from a long line of benevolent leaders. What other country, for instance, can boast a full collection of the original Bosko shorts? We had to trade Syria several thousand tons of our grain supply to achieve such an honor, but boy, the looks on those kids' faces when they see Bosko sniff a flower or shoe a horse-really helps with those violent and uncontrollable hunger pangs, or so I'm told.

This may surprise you, but, with all due respect, cartoons might not be the answer to everything. Remember when we asked you to attend a very special meeting because several hundred young men were abducted and forced to toil away in the totalitarian Claymation State's work camps? Instead of bringing guidance, encouragement, and a plan of action, you showed up with that projector of yours, screened a poorly colorized, inexplicably edited cartoon that ended abruptly, and left. I mean, we all know that's been your thing since you became our ruler, but we didn't send out a formal invitation just so you could pad out this gathering with a two-minute trip to the Public Domain.

Allow me to be brutally honest: Morale amongst your citizens has dropped significantly. While we once viewed you as a lovable eccentric with a strange fixation on animation that lost its copyright decades ago, our current situation demands a more proactive attitude. And, if you sincerely believe cartoons are a viable solution, can't you at least show us some better ones? We're a nation with an army Your Highness-I assume you could at least get your royal hands on seven minutes of Bugs Bunny, right? At this point, I'd even settle for the ones that pit Daffy Duck against Speedy Gonzales for no apparent reason. If you'll excuse my candidness, we as a people fully understand what happens in a toy shop after dark, and I've personally seen enough animated dolls dance to songs no one remembers to fill several lifetimes.

Take our recent conflict with the CGI Principality. Just before conflict broke out, you were asked to attend a meeting with their ruler, who was angry that the many diseased corpses we toss into the river-we simply can't dig graves fast enough-found their way into his territory's water supply. Instead of offering a sincere apology on behalf of your entire kingdom, you showed him a 90-second short of cartoon children exploring a candy wonderland where the streams run thick with maple syrup. Seeing as his subjects now must boil their drinking water or face an agonizing death via internal bleeding, he took this act as a declaration of war, and the rampant fires still rage through our most flammable districts. We understand you must be busy with whatever fills your kingly schedule, but can you at least offer an apology for your unintended faux pas? You can only watch so many orphanages burn to the ground before losing your get up and go.

In closing, we hope you take this missive seriously. In your conspicuous absence, several violent, fundamentalist sects have risen to power, making it so you can't even stroll down Main Street without being greeted by the severed heads of dissidents on pikes. Right now, we need leadership, and no amount of rubber hose animation will bring this country back to its former state of prosperity. Some unconfirmed whisperings have told me the next time you show up with nothing to offer but that projector, it just might be used to cave your head in. And while I can't exactly verify this, I've seen the streets littered with several King of Cartoons effigies with their melon heads crushed to pieces by your preferred audio-visual device. Maybe next time, you could try streaming YouTube through your phone? Just a thought.

– A Concerned Cartoon Kingdom Citizen