A spokesperson for Galactic Studios Theme Park announced today that the plans to establish a Klyde Morris land in their popular Orlando theme park have been cancelled following the company's first meeting with Wes Oleszewski, author of the popular aviation cartoon. Director of Galactic Studios project development Charles U. Farley told ANN that the studio had big plans for the cartoon but the initial meeting with the cartoonist did not go as planned.

"We've always wanted to have a section of the park that would attract folks with an interest in flight." Farley said, "And we thought that this being the 100th anniversary of flight a cartoon about aviation would be the thing to have."

The reason why the deal between Galactic Studios and the cartoon strip's author went down the drain were detailed by Farley who described the events of the studio's meeting with the cartoonist.

"The guy's some sort of lunatic!" Farley said, "We'd set up a nice meeting with a desert tray and cold cuts and everything. Then just as we began talking all hell broke loose." Farley said that members of his staff were offering suggestions as to how the Klyde Morris cartoon character could be modified to be a bit more politically correct. "Our director of sensitivity, Mr. Derks said that he was a bit uncomfortable with the colors of the character. The head is light brown and the middle is darker brown and the bottom is the darkest brown. He suggested that the character be changed to just different shades of blue so as to not be offensive to any group of people. All of a sudden that cartoonist guy growled something like "Blue eh?" "Ya want blue? I'll show ya' blue!" Then he dove across the table and grabbed poor Mr. Derks by the throat!"

Farley stated that when it appeared that the cartoonist intended to strangle the Galactic Studios employee until Derks himself turned shades of blue the rest of the employees in the room jumped in to save their coworker.

"Poor Derks was turning a funny color and making gagging sounds. Spit and stuff was flying around so my public relations director grabbed the cartoonist and spun him around. She's been taking self-defense classes and punched him right in the mouth, knocking out two teeth. But he just spit them back at her and smiled showing this big gap in his teeth as he continued to strangle Derks. Ms. Hollinz fainted dead away. How was she to know that those teeth weren't real?"

Farley said that the whole altercation came to an end when studio security showed up.

"I got to a phone and called studio security." Farley said, "They stormed in right away and one of them zapped that maniac with a stungun."

Farley said that the cartoonist then released this grip on the studio's director of sensitivity and fell to the floor of the boardroom, convulsing and flopping around.

"Every time he'd stop convulsing, my security guards would beat him like Rodney King and then zap him again with the stungun. Eventually they were just zapping him to watch him flop around. One of them offered to lend his stungun to Ms. Hollinz, but she had her own and it had a full charge on it. She got in her fair share of zaps before the battery ran down."

Farley stated that the Klyde Morris cartoonist was then escorted from the property (continuing a fine tradition of such banishments, first pioneered by ANN's Editor-In-Chief...).

"We put duct tape on his mouth and stuffed him into a big laundry sack. Then I had some of the boys from our lawn and garden care staff toss him into the back of a truck and dump him on the roadside out by Daytona."

When asked if Galactic Studios was still looking for a cartoon to base their 42.6 million dollar expansion of the theme park upon he said that they would continue to search for the right cartoon format. "I guess next time we'll try and go with a cartoon that is less edgy. Something like Sponge Bob, but actually funny. It'll be important next time to actually find a cartoonist who's actually open to suggestion, not to mention being sane."

When contacted by ANN and asked about the incident, Klyde Morris cartoonist Wes Oleszewski said, "These offers to use and expand my cartoon strip come along all the time, the results are usually about the same."

FMI: www.klydemorris.com, www.klydemorrsforpresident.com