Sort-of History of the WBC

10/26/01

Greeting Fans,
My name is Vince Benenati. For those who don't know me, I'm one of news reporters at Toon Zone News (TZN). I come here to inform you all with some great news. Currently, a whole new Warner Bros. Club (WBC) site is in the early development stages here at Toon Zone. It will look noticeably different than the previous WBC incarnations and feature a whole new staff. Don't fret though, Craig Marinaro will still be around posting your fan fictions. Without the help of Craig, the Warner Bros. Club would have ceased to exist long before. The new site will include original flash cartoons, online comics including the very popular Chip and Water, fan art and other great surprises. After everything is set up, WBC is going to pick the best fan art from the drawing board on a certain time basis and post it of the fan art section of the WBC Site. Readers of the WBC will also be able to vote on a few online flash cartoon pilots to decide which one becomes a full online short.

The WBC board will become the board to post about the WBC site, what the like/don't like, suggestions, their favorite comics on WBC, characters, etc., whatever. Basically, becoming much more like the community it was before. You can still voice your opinion on the state of animation today, even more so. The same rules apply as before and I ask you all who haven't already, to read them over.

The new WBC site has no confirmed launch date yet. Expect more information soon. Before then, check out a little teaser from the Talented Mr. Matt Wilson. Click here to view it. Macromedia Flash is required to view it.

So what's "the WBC," what's the significance of it and why is it being resurrected on this, the tenth anniversary of the wide and growing network that is Toon Zone? The answer to that question is that the WBC was Toon Zone before there was a Toon Zone to begin with.

It was the original site founded by those who went on to found the larger one. Toon Zone's foundation was that of 90's Warner Bros. Animation (WBA) fans--Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, etc. But after they launched TZ and it began to occupy much of their time, the WBC shrank into a small corner amidst all the other features and slowly died out, the last update occuring in early 2002.

I know very little about the original WBC because I was never there. Apparently in its dying days a relaunch was discussed that went nowhere. Eileen "Harley" Cruz, founder of WBC, TZ, CD and every other set of initials there is, would know much more about WBC history than I would, and she was supposed to write this introduction, but due to a sudden lack of funds she had to take on a ton of emergency freelance junk to save her life. Thusly, I am stuck writing this instead, just as I've had to write everything else.

Last year Harley wondered if anybody would be interested in reviving WBC. I said yes right away. When I first surfed over to Toon Zone, one of the first things I looked for was a site for Animaniacs or Tiny Toons, and found the absence of such things curious. Especially since TZ was founded by fans. ESPECIALLY since they've got a site devoted to the 1981 Spider-Man cartoon, but not one for this. TZ deserves a good WBA site. I resolved to work on it in my rare spare time when I'm not working on my regular site, under the assumption that other people would also be interested in working on it too.

No such luck. I know several WBA fanatics, but none of them were interested in taking part in renovating WBC. Right down to the end, I was hoping someone would join along and save me from having to craft it all myself, but it never happened. Everything you will see and read here today is my creation alone. This is why current content is so sparse and half the sections don't even have anything yet. The tall order I set for myself was to create a different design for every section of the site. That took up most of development time, and I really don't want to be the guy who has to write lengthy descriptions and factoids for every single episode of everything. I'm the kind of person who finds his joy in coming up with WBC's new creative, wacky and interesting features, not spending an hour on a dry multi-paragraph description of "Whale's Tales." I really need someone to take over that part or it may never be done. Is that you? Please click there.

The old WBC, as it stands raw, is a mine field of broken links. The sidebar on most pages doesn't work because it adds the current location name to the address for some reason (I know what the reason is, but since most people's visits to the old ghost town will be short, I don't feel motivated to fix it just yet). Have no fear, though: with my newly-acquired access to everything in the old WBC's memory banks, I'll link you to what I found that amused me most.

CHATROOM: It's not there anymore, so don't bother trying to make an account. But WBC once had a chatroom; here's visual confirmation.

if danger mouse got into a fight with falcon 7 would would win??? if the batmobile got into a race with mach 5 which would win???
clem snide
USA - Monday, August 13, 2001 at 14:18:08 (CDT)

I found it! It was on my head. Thanks : )
Charles e Wagner
Lancaster , pa USA - Sunday, August 05, 2001 at 12:32:58 (CDT)

Has anyone seen my hat?????? I cant find it anywhere.
Charles E Wagner
Lancaster , PA USA - Friday, August 03, 2001 at 18:55:26 (CDT)

SANTA TOON: No....idea. This isn't even linked to from the old site; it was just sitting on the server. My best guess is that this must've been something the admins did privately for their own amusement. I guess that would mean we're not supposed to look at it. Heh, cool!

ORIGINAL ORIGINAL WBC: This is even older, and another thing on the server impossible to get to (until now). This must be what the first incarnation of the WBC looked like. Wow, Prodigy. I bet that "WBC" graphic took two hours to load back then.