Tiny Toon Adventures Cartoon Workshop

Warning to all parents: Hide your NESes before it's too late. Pull the fuses and throw out the TV. But whatever you do, don't let this cart into your house. Otherwise you're going to hear more cries of, "Hey, Mom, watch this!" than the first time your kids discovered diving boards. They'll be directing their own Saturday morning Tiny Toons cartoons and, probably, driving everybody nuts.

The way the Cartoon Workshop works is to give you a handful of backgrounds; a cast of (most of the) Tiny Toons characters, each with an individual menu of animated sequences and gags; a collection of sound effects and musical pieces; and a bunch of silly phrases. Once you figure out the editing procedure, you can assemble the bits and pieces into a finished cartoon, up to about eight minutes long. Save your masterpiece to videotape for posterity (there are instructions for hooking up a VCR to the NES); there's no battery backup, so the cartoon can't be saved directly to the cart. It's a great concept, requiring more imagination and concentration than the average video game, and the results are something you can take pride in.

There are significant limitations, though. The editing system is initially confusing. Young children will probably stay confused and will definitely need constant help. So don't imagine you'll be able to buy this cart for your six-year-old and send him off to play; he'll be yanking on your pants leg for help within seconds, and it'll be that way for good. Yet by using the Tiny Toons characters, the cart is aimed to appeal specifically to young children. Weird!

The second consideration applies to those older children (i.e., the rest of us) who are fascinated by the idea of directing their own cartoons, and will really get into it. While the Workshop does a great job of providing lots of detailed, scrolling backgrounds (some even have background animation of their own), there's only so many times you can see the same characters perform the same few sight gags over and over. Each character has several gags, with numerous slight variations, in addition to standard sequences like walking, standing still and so on. This problem could be overcome if the text feature would allow you to input your own text, to create plots, tell jokes, personalize messages, etc.—but it doesn't. You're stuck using the same phrases repeatedly. "Why me?" doesn't pack too much of a comedic wallop the 20th time around.

The documentation does an admirable job of describing all of the bells and whistles. The walk-through, which guides you through the creation of a simple cartoon, is most helpful, though it contains at least one mistake, which resulted in a mangled cartoon (it may have been an early version of the documentation). Missing was coverage of how to edit out previous flubs.

All in all, it's an attractive, well-engineered cartoon machine whose only noticeable flaws are its lack of flexible text input and the conflict between the complexity of its operation and the kiddie appeal of its characters. Those of us who aren't daunted by these limitations are bound to have a pretty good time playing Chuck Jones and vying for the cartoon Academy Award.

It's a video game. No, it's a cartoon. No, it's, it's...Tiny Toon Adventures Cartoon Workshop. Huh? Read on! This is not a game. Cartoon Workshop is a build your-own animation program that uses characters and elements from the smash hit Tiny Toon Adventures cartoon series. Similar to other breakthrough art games, such as Mario Paint and Art Alive, this game proves that you can have fun on your home video game system without lasers, monster bosses, or evil ninjas!

Lights, Camera, ACTION!

Cartoon Workshop places you in several roles -- writer, director, set decorator, composer, and cinematographer as you create cartoon segments that run up to five minutes in length. All your favorite Tiny Toons characters are waiting offstage, including Buster Bunny, Babs Bunny, Furrball, Plucky Duck, Calamity Coyote, and Little Beeper. The handy menu system enables you to scroll through and choose among a wide selection of stage settings, sound effects, music, props, and dialogue captions.

Before you start thanking the Academy, you have to learn the basics of making films. The first order of business is to prepare the setting and decorate the stage. In addition to 11 solid color backgrounds, you get eight, ready-made, scenic backgrounds, including a spooky castle, a forest, a schoolyard, and a desert. Each background is several TV screens wide, and you may connect several backgrounds together.

Toons and Tunes

Next up is the casting call. Up to two Tiny Toon characters can be on-screen' at the same time. Each character features a repertoire of animated moves, such as jumping, walking, and specific individual character movements. Some movements are quite detailed, such as Calamity Coyote jumping on a detonator and exploding in a puff of smoke, while others offer limited animation or no animation. As writer/director, you choose which animated clips best suit your setting and story. A wide assortment of props, such as explosions, water drops, fishies and bubbles, are also available.

You can add dialogue, music, and sound effects to your Oscar winner. A list of over two dozen captions is available, including key Tiny Toons phrases such as Babs' "To die for!" As for the sounds, various soundtracks create different moods, and audio effects. Bumps, klunks, slams, and bangs add extra punch to the onscreen action.

Thumbs Up!

A salute to Konami for creating a groundbreaking game that is both fun and educational. Although the game is aimed at younger players who watch Tiny Toons, players of all ages will have fun creating their own cartoons. Who knows, this game just might just send future Steven Spielbergs and George Lucases on their way to Hollywood!