Oh my god, that is the best Bat-exchange ever.

Babs' line reading was particularly good there, too.

Which titles do you recommend?

Galveston, especially. (Basically, everything except Cloud's End, but especially Galveston.)

New tag! New tag!

The Batman-Babs exchange was lovely, I just happened to catch it on TV and blinked several times. Bats' extreme cluelessness and Babs' pleasure in that was wonderful.

Many moons ago, the Animaniacs were doing Russian history. In a segment on Rasputin, they've got him tied to a dentist's chair. Wakko: "And now we administer a little Anastasia!" Cue the girl in the ball gown with a mallet. Yakko: "It's a pun. Ask your folks."

Cartoons were so much better ten years ago.

Cartoons were so much better ten years ago.

Hmmm, well you did have Animaniacs and Batman Animated then.

But now you've got JL, Teen Titans, Samurai Jack, all the Adult Swim shows. Hell, Spongebob and Fairly Oddparents have both made me laugh more than a few times. But there really isn't anything for kids with the anarchic slant of the WB cartoons like Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, or Freakazoid.

Hmmm, well you did have Animaniacs and Batman Animated then.

And Spidey and X-Men. And Gargoyles.

But now you've got JL, Teen Titans, Samurai Jack, all the Adult Swim shows. Hell, Spongebob and Fairly Oddparents have both made me laugh more than a few times.

Point for Adult Swim, and Fairly Oddparents. I haven't seen much of the others, and I'm anti-Spongebob for the most part.

But there really isn't anything for kids with the anarchic slant of the WB cartoons like Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, or Freakazoid.

Exactly. Although there is the less anarchic slant of Arthur. The show's made references to South Park, Dr. Katz, and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."

Not to turn this into the default cartoon thread, but, yeah damn I miss Animaniacs. Everyonce in a while I break out into Lake Titicaca. Also I snicker like a twelve year old at "He was a famous pianist!"

Not to turn this into the default cartoon thread, but, yeah damn I miss Animaniacs.

First of all, it still plays on Nick in the afternoons - usually 3pmish. So you needn't miss it entirely. Second, when we had Saturday Morning Cartoons at the LA F2F, the Animaniacs theme definitely got the most rousing singalong. Third, I recommend buying the Animaniacs Variety Pack (two CDs) because when JZ and Emmett and I are driving somewhere that makes for some funner driving.

Literary: Nick Hornby writes about Dickens in the current issue of The Believer. Sometimes I feel guilty about The Believer - something about the oh-so-tasteful-yet-clever McSweeny-ness of it makes it feel more like a lifestyle fetish object than a journal. But then they go and have really interesting things in it. Like the interview with the sculptor Kiki Smith in this issue, or the philosopher Silvia Benso (her views on ethics would be interesting to a number of Buffistas - Jen, I'm looking at you. No she's not all vegan. It's about ethics' responsibility to otherness).

Hornby also makes good use of Google for literary investigation (searching on "Coetzee" and "spare").

I have most of the Animaniacs songs on mp3. I'm listening to Lake Titicaca now!!!

I have nothing to add except that I read The Lottery again this morning and got thoroughly freaked out.

"It's not fair! It's not right!"

One of the questions in my lit book for this story was to show why one of those statements was false and one was true. (The answer obviously being that it was scrupulously fair.)