Search - Craig Bartock :: Animaniacs Starring In A Hip-Hopera Christmas

There are candy-cane collections of holiday music for kids and then there are the discs that are the aural equivalent of a coal bin. Unfortunately, the Animaniacs are covered in soot. An attempt to retell the Dickens fable A Christmas Carol, this inanimate version is largely noisy, unimaginative, and almost completely forgettable. Inside jokes about Warner Bros. are definitely not targeted at kids, which is the same criticism one could leverage against much of what passes for kids' cartoons these days. If you must roll in the soot, get your little ones Ren & Stimpy's Crock o' Christmas instead. In comparison, it makes A Hip-Hopera Christmas show its true colors as nothing more than a manufactured vehicle to sell more empty calories and junk to kids. --Martin Keller