graemebunton.com » Archives » Was Yakko’s World Politicized?

At my old friend Brendan’s wedding this weekend the MC sang the “Yakko’s World” song from the old cartoon Animanics. It was oddly placed within his humourous hosting, but it stuck with me long enough to look it up when i got home.

Now, it’s important to note, that at the begining of the piece they state that what follows are the “nations of the world” and not the countries, or nation-states. That said, the vast majority of places that follow are indeed what we would conventionally call countries, sorted roughly be continent.

There are a number of inaccuracies created by time, quite a number of countries don’t exist anymore (Yugoslavia, anyone?) and a number have been created, such as East Timor. You can check out the wikipedia entry for the song for a complete listing of missed countries.

What struck me as notable however, and prompted this post, was that included amongst the countries were Tibet and Palestine. The episode originally aired in 1993, shortly after the Oslo Accords which effectively ended the first Palestinian Intifada. It’s too soon however for the inclusion of Palestine to be related to this event, but the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was clearly an issue at the time. The Dalai Lama had been awarded his Nobel Peace Prize a few years prior to the cartoon, so it’s not like Tibet was off the radar then either.

So, I would really like to know if writer Randy Rogel included these places as a statement of sorts or, alternately, if they ended up in the bit because they fit the rhyming scheme.

Now, all I need to do is find away to contact him that doesn’t cost me a fortune. Then, finally, I’ll be able to sleep at night knowing the answer to the pernicious, decades old political mystery.

******Update******

I found contact information for Randy so I sent him an email and he was kind enough to reply. It turns out that the inclusion of Tibet and Palestine were not politically motivated, but that they worked in the song as it moved through the geographic regions and with the internal rhyming structure.

So, there ya have it. This long standing question of vital importance has been answered.

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TAGS: Animaniacs, Cartoon, Countries, Randy Rogel, Song, World, Yakko