Cartoons
Work in progress
“No, I’ve never written a children’s song, just a satirical song about the modern Christian tendency to 'Christianize' everything. I was hoping everyone would get the satire, but they missed the satire, and embraced the song as legit.”
—Chris Rice
"Cartoons"[1], sometimes spelled "Cartoons (Live)"[2], is a satirical contemporary Christian song written by Chris Rice. It is a hidden track on his 1998 album, Past the Edges, and it plays after the song "Missin' You", after about two minutes of silence. It is a tongue-in-cheek song about if cartoon characters had eternal salvation.
Despite being a hidden track, "Cartoons" quickly became popular and was frequently played on Christian radio stations. It was included on WOW 2000, as the 15th track on the silver disc (Disc 2), and on Chris Rice's compilation album, Short-Term Memories, which released in 2004. The printed music for "Cartoons" is in the vocal folio books, "A Night in Rocketown" and "WOW 2000 Songbook."
History
"Cartoons" was written some time in the mid-1990s, when Chris Rice made it as a skit for a junior high youth group in a local church in Tennessee.[3]
Lyrics
The premise of the song describes what might happen if Christians succeeded in incorporating Christianity into cartoons. According to the song, cartoon characters would sing their own pun of "Hallelujah".
In order, the cartoon characters mentioned in the song are: Fred and Wilma Flintstone (The Flinstones), Scooby-Doo and Shaggy (Scooby-Doo!), Astro (The Jetsons), the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Kermit the Frog (The Muppets), Elmer Fudd (Looney Tunes), Yogi Bear (The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Yogi Bear Show), Rocky and Bullwinkle, The Smurfs (referred to as "all those little blue guys"), and Beavis and Butt-head (referred to as Beavis and "that other guy"). The word "Animaniac" is used near the end ("I'm not an Anamaniac"). The song references nine cartoons, with five of them being a Hanna-Barbera cartoon.
I was thinkin' the other day,
"What if cartoons got saved?
They'd start singing praise
In a whole new way..."
Yeah, I was thinkin' the other day,
"What if cartoons got saved?
They'd start singing praise
In a whole new way..."
Fred and Wilma Flintstone
Sing "Yabba-dabba-do-lu-yah"
Scooby-doo and Shaggy:
"Scooby-dooby-doo-loo-yah"
And the Jetsons' dog named Astro:
"Rough-ray-roo-loo-yah"
Teenage Mutant Ninga Turtles:
"Cowabunga-loo-yah, Dude!"
Then there's, "Kermit the Frog here, singing,
High-ho-le-loo-yah"
And that little bald guy, Elmer Fudd:
"How-ay-woo-yah"
Oh that big old moose and his friend Rocky,
"Bullwinkle-loo-yah"
And our favourite bear named Yogi,
"Hey, Boo-Boo-loo-ya"
Then there's all those little blue guys
And they'd sing, "Hah-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-lay-loo-yah"
How about Beavis and that other guy?
"Nah!!"
Now, there's a point to this looney-tune
I'm not an Anamaniac
But there's a lot of praisin' to do
And cartoons weren't made for that
It's our job
So, let's sing hallelujah
Reception
Overall, "Cartoons" was met with mixed reception. Most of the criticism came from conservative Christians, who took the song seriously and thought Chris Rice was serious about his message that salvation also applied to cartoons.[3]
Trivia
- In the article "Eulogy For A Song About Cartoons", Chris Rice mentioned twice that he wrote "Cartoons" about 15 years ago. The song was said to "born" in 1989 (likely a misspelling of 1998, when Chris Rice's album Past the Edges was released and made the song popular).[3] The article was published on January 4, 2006, so fifteen years before that would have been 1991. The song was written a few years after 1991 because it references Animaniacs and Beavis and Butt-head, both of which premiered on television in 1993.
