In a perfect world, a long overdue bio on Bob Clampett is finally published using the family's massive archives. Courtesy of the Bob Clampett Collection ™ & © Bob Clampett Productions.

In a perfect world, we get our wish every time out. The scratch-off ticket always reveals at least five thousand bucks under "Your Number," your football team unfailingly nails the winning field goal as time expires, and Brad Bird puts an animated film out every two weeks. If only our lives worked that way. Well, we don't have a perfect world, but we still have our ability to wish. Since animation has always been romantically regarded as a "magic" medium, here's what I wish my fairy godmother could do. (Note: The sorcerers' union still insists on just three wishes, but I was given more on the condition that I did not wish for any more episodes of Assy McGee. Good deal and an easy one to make.)

1. Someone finally writes a biography of Bob Clampett. The family controls massive archives of all the material Clampett collected throughout his career, enough to fill a small library; a great book is just waiting to happen. So many seminal (and lesser) figures in animation have had biographies written, but the story of Bob Clampett's life remains untold. Still a controversial and revered figure nearly twenty-five years after his death, Clampett deserves to have his due. Come on now -- isn't this a book you would add to your library?

2. Ralph Bakshi finds the backers and the money to make The Last Days of Coney Island. Love him or hate him, Bakshi may be American animation's greatest maverick. If his work isn't always great, it is always notable and influential. This landmark animator needs a better legacy than bowing out with two shorts on Cartoon Network done 11 years ago and a short-lived cable show that nobody even remembers. I wish somebody would pony up and let Ralph make one last great artistic statement. This guy can play, and he'd show us all what a storyteller he still can be.

3. I wish I could get the heads at Comedy Channel and FOX together on this one: A TV special featuring a Simpsons-South Park crossover! No censorship, no boundaries, no holds barred! Do it all in one consistent style of CGI. We just have to get Bart and the SP gang together, not to mention those large casts of hilarious supporting players! Look, if DC and Marvel could figure out how to do this sort of thing and share the revenues back in the 1980s, the network execs can iron out the details too. Admit it -- you loved their separate features and you would watch this one.

4. It's the 20th anniversary of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, perhaps the most important film in America's animation revival of the 1990s. There still isn't a sequel, even though the film grossed nearly $330 million -- and that's in 1998 dollars. I have chronicled the sad story behind the death of the sequel, and I'm still unhappy. Eisner's gone. Spielberg's moved on. I wish that the powers that be would iron out the kinks and get this done; no time is better than now. So? What would you rather see, Shark Tale 2?

5. When John Kricfalusi and Ralph Bakshi were on the same team, they kicked around the idea of reviving the Terrytoons TV series Deputy Dawg. Wouldn't it be great if John K. could pick up the rights (which I'm sure would not be extravagant at this late date) and run with this himself? The character still has great appeal, and you can bet that Kricfalusi's version would not be very predictable or formulaic. In fact, it would likely be so warped and bizarre that Muskie's own mother wouldn't recognize him. Neither would Larz Bourne for that matter. I miss John K. It would be good to have him back on the airwaves, or even putting this up on his site. I'd watch/download it faithfully.

It's 20 years later… where's the sequel to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? © Buena Vista Home Ent. Inc. All rights reserved.

6. The end of Live-Action Animated Features (which I have been appropriately calling LAAFs for years now). Perhaps one out of every 10 is merely passable; most are stomach-turning garbage. I have detailed the reasons why in many of my columns, and rather than reiterating them again, I simply wish they would stop. Hollywood studio execs, please stick to live-action comic book adaptations. Even the least of them has been vastly more entertaining and translatable than wearisome efforts to adapt animation to live action. As I have pointed out, most of these gaggers are created by people with little (or no) experience in the animation medium. If you don't know a storyboard from a surfboard, go take a long swim. And, sorry, Wachowskis -- don't forget to take your execrable Speed Racer movie with you.

7. I wish for an end to runaway animation production. Well... it's a good wish, anyway. Kind of like wishing for a swimming pool on Mars. OK, let's get real. I wish for a sequel to The Iron Giant. The ending of the film does sort of set one up... maybe this time whoever distributes the film will give it publicity and an advertising budget! Yeah! Throw that into the wish as well, kind Fairy Godmother. No, wait -- didn't The Incredibles kind of end with...