extremely powerful! We must provide the very best! We need to develop media that stim-
ulates and educates as well as media that does not. We should inspire kids to open a book,
surf the Internet, and talk to other kids about the ideas and information we present. We
need to show children that laughter feels good and makes any problem seem smaller.
In this huge world we live in, how can we get children to interconnect? How will we get
children to realize that there are other children out there who may think differently about
many things but who are basically the same as they are? How can we bring them closer
together so that tomorrow is more peaceful than today?
A few years ago I traveled to a country where the struggling poor lived in makeshift
villages that circled the major cities. While I was at my hotel in the capital, I watched car-
toons. I had previously worked on one. As I left the city on a bus, hundreds of temporary,
one-room dwellings constructed of tin, found wood, or cardboard lined the main road. There
was no running water or sewage system, but there was plenty of mud. I was amazed to see
that a wire had been tapped into the power lines along the highway and strung to one of
the tin shacks, where a TV antenna proudly topped the roof. Undoubtedly, inside streams
of children giggled at cartoons. As animation writers, you are writing for allkids around the
globe.
We have a diverse world of children—and, yes, adults—to provide with the finest media
we can create. Our audience needs to learn and to grow just as we do. They deserve to be
inspired. They want to lose themselves in a story until they cry, and they’re entitled to laugh
until they roll on the floor! That’s the challenge, and that’s the fun!
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