Inspiration, Animaniacs Style

Demons, gods, sea monsters, egotistical magicians, fresco artists, warriors, little girls with daggers, llamas and tigers living together… Trying to get everyone in tune for the final battle is proving a bit nerve wracking. Since I’m slogging my way to the end of the Untamed Fantasy Novel©, of course all sorts of ideas for the Rampant Run Amok Military Sci-Fi Novel© decided to erupt instead. What the heck, working on a bit of the RRAMSF Novel couldn’t be all bad, could it? Then I could return to the UFN and figure out how to kill off a god. Nothing like a little cosmic mayhem to make the words flow.

Not.

My RRAMSF characters stubbornly insisted on talking. Chatting sociably about their problems, as if they were having tea in an upscale Shoppe instead of fighting to save their little corner of the cosmos. As if they were the most important thing in my quasi-created universe. How dare they! I had to get their attention, and refocus them on priorities – mine. Desperately seeking inspiration, I turned to my old standby. Cartoons. Is there no wisdom they can’t impart?

Yakko's Universe

Everybody lives on a street in a city
Or a village or a town for what it's worth.
And they're all inside a country which is part of a continent
That sits upon a planet known as Earth.
And the Earth is a ball full of oceans and some mountains
Which is out there spinning silently in space.
And living on that Earth are the plants and the animals
And also the entire human race.

It's a great big universe
And we're all really puny
We're just tiny little specks
About the size of Mickey Rooney.
It's big and black and inky
And we are small and dinky
It's a big universe and we're not.

And we're part of a vast interplanetary system
Stretching seven hundred billion miles long.
With nine planets and a sun; we think the Earth's the only one
That has life on it, although we could be wrong.
Across the interstellar voids are a billion asteroids
Including meteors and Halley's Comet too.
And there's over fifty moons floating out there like balloons
In a panoramic trillion-mile view.

And still it's all a speck amid a hundred billion stars
In a galaxy we call the Milky Way.
It's sixty thousand trillion miles from one end to the other
And still that's just a fraction of the way.
'Cause there's a hundred billion galaxies that stretch across the sky
Filled with constellations, planets, moons and stars.
And still the universe extends to a place that never ends
Which is maybe just inside a little jar!

It's a great big universe
And we're all really puny
We're just tiny little specks
About the size of Mickey Rooney.
Though we don't know how it got here
We're an important part here
It's a big universe and it's ours!
You might think that you're essential
Try inconsequential
It's a small world after all!

Writer: Randy Rogel
Voice of Yakko Warner: Rob Paulsen