Doctor Claw's goon did a couple practice throws, then tossed me across the parking lot.

Somehow, I ended up falling down a hole in the pavement, into another sewer.

I looked up and saw a white figure staring into a hole. "Oops!" it said. "I'd better pick this up before someone gets hurt!"

The hole disappeared.

I ducked down a sewer tunnel just a few moments before the green ninjas came skating through, making all kinds of noise.

For a long time, I just wandered through the labyrinth of tunnels, following the right wall to see where it went.

At least by hiding in the tunnels, I could theoretically avoid the heat. To the best of my knowledge, there weren't any cartoons about grabbing an escaped convict in a sewer tunnel. I figured if they made The Fugitive or Stephen King's Golden Years into a cartoon, it could happen, but I really hoped it wouldn't be anytime soon.

I stumbled across an alligator, but it seemed friendly.

"Hullo!" it said. "Would you like some tea?"

I stared at it for a moment, then said, "Sure."

And so I waded into a half submerged sort of living room, with a little table, a refrigerator and an LCD plasma TV.

I stared at the screen as the creature put the kettle on.

Soccer.

The gator smiled at me. "I have a free cable hookup. Nice, huh?"

"It's...okay," I said.

The alligator gave me tea and some kind of scone thing. The tea kind of tasted like Earl Gray and the `biscuit'...kind of tasted like paper, but I said it was tasty anyway.

Her televised soccer game appeared to be live, featuring real human beings, which is weird because you'd think it would be cartoon soccer against Acme Looniversity or something.

Of course, cartoons can't have pop culture references without access to the reference.

In my little chair, I ate my paper scone and drank tea while watching Brazil scoring points.

"Do you know how to get to the surface?" I asked. "Maybe to the junk yard?"

"I know of a few," it said. "There's even one in my bedroom closet."

"Oh...kay," I said. "How about a way back to the real world?"

She only shrugged.

"Fine. I think I'll just...settle for the junkyard."

I waded after the gator as it swam into a brick sewer tunnel/bedroom with dressers and a purple queen bed with a mirror reflecting its sheets from the ceiling. A laptop stood open on a table at the foot of the bed.

The situation made me a little uncomfortable, even more so as the creature batted its eyelashes at me and posed provocatively on the bed.

I hurried up to the closet, peering inside.

My host basically wore a lot of belts and not much else, it seemed. At the rear of the closet, I could see a maintenance ladder with a manhole above.

"Before you go," said the gator. "I need to give you something."

I swallowed. "Such as?"

She grabbed my face, giving me a sloppy French kiss.

That sounds disgusting, but she was animated, so I figured things could have been worse. Say, for example, if I had been Frenched by a real German Shepherd. Now that would be gross.

The manhole led into the trunk of a busted up Chevy. I pushed open the lid, and found myself staring out at a mountain of trash and scrap metal.

I quickly hopped out, glancing around the junk piles for signs of police.

I hadn't gone a step when I heard a low growl behind me.

I spun around and saw a brown dog with black ears and a blue skull and crossbones hat frowning at me.

"Buddy, you're trespassing on private property," it said. "You don't want to know what I do to trespassers!"

I remembered what the dog was called, and what he was about. He wasn't a static villain, he had a love life (I think), and a couple times his enemy Cat-Illac Cats tried to help him out with things, like keeping his job.

"Uh, hey, Leroy," I said. "Um, I'm not exactly trespassing, per se. I'm actually looking for a catalytic converter for a `72 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. There's no law against shopping, is there?"

The dog looked flustered. "N-no. I guess not. Can't say I've heard of what you're looking for, but you can probably find anything in this pile of junk if you look hard enough."

Feeling a bit emboldened, I added, "Oh, when I was walking past the dump the other day, I noticed a red and white Cadillac that turns into a house and a boat. I'd like to buy it. Can you show me where it's been moved to?"

"Uh...you don't want that," the dog said nervously. "It's full of pests."

"Really? What a shame. I'm embarrassed to say this, but it's actually what I came here to buy. The converter is just a little extra piece for one of my other cars."

The dog grumbled something indistinct, and I was led to the appropriate junk mound, the one with the car I mentioned, adjacent to the airplane fuselage piece with the chute that drops down into a rocket propelled bath tub.

"Thanks," I said. "I think I can figure it out from here."

"I hope so. Good luck on emptying that thing out." With that the dog stomped off.

Immediately the tenants of the junk pile came out, a short orange feline with a scarf and a pumpkin shaped hat, a white cat with headphones and roller skates, a skinny brown cat with a headband, and a fat gray one with crossed eyes and a little ski cap.

I pointed to each of them in turn. "Riffraff, Wordsworth, Hector, Mungo...where's Cleo?"

"Working at the Halftone Club," Riffraff, the orange one said. "If that's any of your concern."

The brown cat, Hector, scowled at me. "The more important question is, who are you?"

"It's really bizarre," said Wordsworth, the white one. "That he knows who we are!"

"Drew Deebes," I said.

They backed away a little.

"Drew Deebes!" they all cried.

The white one pointed at me. "Deebes is that clown, that tore Cool World down!"

Mungo muttered something to Hector, who muttered in Riffraff's ear.

The lead cat sighed and shook his head. "C'mon. Holli wants to talk to you."

"Holli?" I said. "As in Holli Would?"

He nodded. "Who else?"

"There goes the neighborhood," said Hector in a dismal tone.

"What's this about?" I said.

"I don't know, and I'm not sure I want to, either."

"If she wants to sleep with me, she can forget it," I said. "There's nothing more disgusting than sleeping with your dad's girlfriend."

They seemed somewhat relieved to hear me saying this, but only to a slight degree. I guess they weren't sure if I told the truth.

"At any rate," said Riffraff. "I was instructed to bring you to her."

I furrowed my brow. "Wait. How could she even know that I'd be here?"

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "But she had a source."

I shook my head. "Cartoons."

"C'mon," Riffraff urged. "The sooner this is over, the better."

"What do you mean? As soon as what is over?"

The cat poked me in the stomach. "You. I can't wait to get rid of you, and this whole sorry business!"

I laughed nervously. "So, what. You're going to rub me out?"

Riffraff rolled his eyes. "I wish!"

"We made a deal with certain individuals," said Hector. "As soon as we dump you off at Holli's place, we won't have to deal with your ugly face again."

"Just because my dad is Jack Deebes, you automatically think I'm scum."

They all nodded.

Okay, so maybe Mungo didn't, but he's a little slow.

"I'm not my dad," I said. "I don't intend to be like my dad. So whatever you're thinking, it's wrong."

"Duh, I was thinking you're an okay guy!" said Mungo. "But if you say it's wrong, it's wrong!"

I groaned. "Whatever. Look. I used to watch you on TV all the time when I was a kid. I used to love you guys." I shook my head, looking into the black dots that served as Riffraff's pupils. "You especially. I loved how you tried so hard to make Cleo happy, and how you always got the gang together to pull of some crazy half baked plan to get food, or something..."

Riffraff just scowled at me. "If you like us so much. Do us a favor and follow the rule: Look, but don't touch."

"No touching," I said. "I swear."

I followed him down the mountain of junk to the car.

It has been a boyhood fantasy of mine to ride in the felines' fancy Cadillac. I always wondered why the thing never drove anywhere, but I guess the vehicle probably didn't exit the junkyard because it would technically be theft. Of course, I never actually saw the property owner on the show...

Come to think of it, the creators of the show were always a bit vague about the type of dump the cats inhabited. Was it a trash dump, or was it a scrap yard? As a trash dump, it contained far too many automobiles and old tires to be practical for disposing a million tons of household waste. As a scrap yard, it sure had a lot of banana peels, broken lamps and other random debris.

Did I pull a fast one on the dog? Or did I merely surprise him with possibly the only legal business deal his company ever saw?

When we passed Leroy, he looked upset, growling at us, but I sat up in the back seat and said, "Chill! We're going to the loan office."

That shut him up.

Honestly, if there was a loan office not manned by a wolf and two sharks, I would have gone there in a second, and gotten a cartoon job to pay for it, just to get that car...even if the cats were part of the package. I even thought about trying to draw the money.

The view from a cartoon convertible is similar to the interior of a cartoon cop car, except it's wider in scope. Repetitive, but prettier, and it occasionally changed angles with the turn of the steering wheel.

For a moment, I pondered their auto insurance. The point was moot, as they didn't actually own the car, but I suspected they had their choice of a General, Erin Esurance, Snoopy or a Gecko, as the guy from HBO's Oz and that guy with the rumbly bass voice from that detective show and Syfy's Incorporated didn't yet have a cartoon.

Riffraff turned on the car stereo, and we drove through literally picturesque neighborhoods to the hardcore sound of Xzibit. To my annoyance, the cats rapped along with some of the songs.

The neighborhoods turned into tall, bizarrely twisted dark buildings as we traveled over large hills that rose and dipped like waves.

As I stared at the scenery, my first thought was, `I didn't know Dr. Seuss was an architect.' Then, `There's no way that building should be standing.'

At the top of one wave-like hill, we came to an enormous gate that looked like a set of teeth.

I shrank in my seat, preparing for a collision, but at the last moment, the teeth opened, and we were rolling through another stretch of gray buildings.

The Cat-illac stopped in front of an intimidating office building with stone lions framing the front staircase. Far above, I could see a green pyramid crowning the twisted structure. Across the street, stood a cylindrical rod-like building, with a puck shaped structure near the top, reminding me vaguely of the Seattle Space Needle. Behind it stood other gray buildings, one of them resembling the London postal tower.

I stared at my surroundings in confusion. "Why are we stopping?"

"Out," said Riffraff.

Surprised, and somewhat outraged, I cried, "What?"

"You get out here," Hector growled.

"But how do I find Holli?"

"Keep walking. You'll see a high rise with an eye on it, and duck sculptures out front. Can't miss it."

Frustrated, and feeling somewhat hurt, I climbed out of the car, and Riffraff did an illegal U-turn and sped off in the opposite direction, leaving me in a cartoon cloud of exhaust.

I stumbled up the block, staring at the rows of immense high rise apartments. The charcoal colored buildings looked melted and oddly bent. When I neared one, I often feared it would collapse on me, but then they were all drawings, more or less.

After walking for several minutes, I found what I was looking for. A dark building with an eye on the door, the front staircase flanked by big sculptures of mallard ducks.

I climbed the stairs and knocked on the door.

A cartoon butler answered, his long pale face like a human owl, wide iris and pupil-less eyes ringed with dark circles, and a long skinny beak of a nose. His hair was dark and matted down like Frankenstein.

The man towered over me by about a foot, and he wore a tuxedo that appeared to be made out of leather. He also wore a dog collar and had a whip wrapped around one shoulder, a fist clenched around a riding crop.

"Mmmyess?" the man said.

I frowned when I noticed he wore a codpiece. "I'm looking for Holli Would," I said. "They told me to look here."

"Then they were wrong," the man said stuffily. "You're in the wrong state. Hollywood is that way." And he pointed down the road.

The door slammed shut before I could say another word.

I knocked again.

This time, the man was dressed in a French maid's outfit. "Mmmyess?"

I could see glimpses of the building's interior behind the man, a sort of mansion-like foyer with a twin staircase, dark red carpeting, a chandelier and a marble statue in the center.

"Holli Would is a person," I told the man. "I was told to look in the house with the ducks outside the door."

"You were told wrong. This is the wrong house."

The door slammed shut once more.

I knocked, and the butler answered the door in a shaggy dog costume, featuring a collar and codpiece.

"Mmmyess?"

I sighed. "Can you tell me where the person named Holli Would resides?"

Owl Butler scowled at me. "No."

Again with the door slamming.

I sat down on the steps, frowning at the rows of irregularly shaped high rise buildings across the street.

Hearing a hinge creaking behind me, I looked back at the door.

Instead of seeing the butler, I saw a peculiar sort of villainess type character. She looked like something Geiger would have made, had he been asked to design a sorceress for He-Man.

She was pale, and a bony plate extended from the top and sides of her skull like the monster in all those Aliens movies. Her face was the standard idealized arrangement of brush strokes and pen lines, comic book illustrator formula. The body was likewise an hourglass figure, encased in an exoskeleton bikini. A black cape hung from her angular shoulder plates, rippling from time to time as a spiky tail disturbed the material.

"I hear you're looking for Holli," she purred as she seated herself next to me. "I'll show you a map."

I glanced up at the door, where the butler now stood in a gimp suit. "Uh...that's okay. Really. I'll...figure it out on my own."

"Are you sure?" she insisted.

"Well..."

As I followed her into the building, the butler unzipped his mask and said, "Mmmyess?"

I expected her to lead me to Skeletor's dungeon, but instead I was led into a very ordinary looking sitting room.

Well, as ordinary as things got in toon town. The eyes on the fancy paintings moved every once and awhile, the deer head over the fireplace had a ball gag in its mouth that it occasionally chewed, there was a disco ball, and all the bookcases were paintings, but it wasn't that weird looking otherwise. Leather sofas, loveseat, ottoman. Glass coffee table full of animated fish, bear skin rug that growled when I stepped on it...

Okay, still kind of weird, but not weird weird.

The stranger opened a sarcophagus in the corner, revealing Mum Rah from the Thundercats. The blue mummified monster grumbled something about Candy Crush as the woman yanked a cel phone from its grip and shut the lid.

Like all cartoon objects, the phone could easily be stretched to a larger size, maybe even the size of a mast on a sailing ship if you had reason to. She stretched it to the size of a computer monitor, bringing up a map. "What's her address?"

I frowned. "I don't know. They just told me to look for a house with an eye and a pair of ducks in front of it."

"Swans," the lady said, reaching behind her head plate. "Oh, and where are my manners?"

She thrust her tail at me. "Miss Terious."

I shook the tail. I was just going along for the ride at this point. "Drew."

I paused. My last name was getting me into all kinds of trouble. "Drew Odum."

"Nice to meet you." She smiled, removing a large pink spider thing from the back of her skull.

When she set the thing on the floor, I could see it was one of those type of things comic book artists draw when they're trying hard not to copy the facehugger from aliens. The thing had eyes and a large set of teeth, its ridged body closely resembling the earwig mother from the Wrath of Khan.

"What's that?" I said.

"It's a tracker," she replied, picking up a bull whip. "She'll show you to Holli's house."

She stretched the whip in her hands. "You may go. As you can see, I'm a little busy."

"Oh...kay?"

And so I followed the facehugger thing out the door.

The butler now wore a diaper and had a ball gag in his mouth, mumbling out a muffled "Mmmyess" as I passed.

The `Phace Hugger' led me up a hill for a few blocks, and then I saw it.

It was a creepy sort of high rise. The swan ornaments out front looked downright demonic. They even had lights inside them.

I had to look up to the twentieth or thirtieth story to see the eye the cats spoke about, but it seemed I had found the right place.

Directly opposite the building, I saw the ramshackle farmhouse from Courage the Cowardly Dog, complete with elderly curmudgeons in rocking chairs and their sleeping pet.

A little boy, Bobby from Bobby's World, pedaled past the house on a big wheel, dragging a stretchy rubber spider toy behind him.

My unsightly guide waved goodbye with its finger legs, waddling off down the hill.

I approached the door of the high rise, staring at the creepy mutant skull shaped door knocker painted on its flat surface.

Not quite sure what to do, I knocked on the knocker.

A drawing popped out of the painted wood, a free flowing sketch of a deformed skull door knocker, looking all mean and evil as it chewed its ring and glared at me.

"What do you want?" it said in a creepy distorted voice.

"Is this where Holli Would lives?"

"Who wants to know?"

I told it, "Me. Drew Deebes."

The knocker squinted at me for a moment, then growled "Suite 2017" and something unintelligible, turning back into a drawing on the door.

The door slid open.

The moment I stepped through the door, I bumped into the stomach of a big purple gorilla with a human-like face, orange eyebrows, and orange pants.

"Uh, sorry," I blurted.

"You don't look like him," it growled.

"Who?" I said, dreading where this was going.

"The Deebes kid. Heard a noid was coming this way, and his name was Deebes. Guess that's you."

I shrugged. "Maybe I am a Deebes. What of it?"

The creature just snickered and stepped aside.

His companion, a deformed blue smurf with no hat, rambled incoherently as I passed him.

I nearly stepped on my next obstacle, some kind of bald mutant in a diaper, with biker gloves on his hands. Its face made me think of a convict from jail for some reason.

"Excuse me," I said to it.

The creature got on its hands, offering me one of its feet to shake.

When I attempted to do so, the creature poked me in the eye with its other foot.

"He's a Deebes, all right."

"Oooh," a female voice moaned. "Let me get a second opinion."

A pair of purple gloves yanked my boxers down. Incredibly embarrassed, I quickly pulled them back up, then spun around to scowl at the one who did it, a light brown midget with huge lips and black hair that curled up in a wave. Her dress and her headband was pink, and she had no legs.

"He's definitely a Deebes," she muttered.

All three laughed at me, then, as I wandered inside, in search of stairs or an elevator, took out bags of popcorn, watching me like I were a kind of movie.

It was by far the most unusual apartment lobby I've ever been in.

Near the door were rows of mailboxes, but that wasn't the strange part. Next to the lock boxes for oversized packages, I found two additional boxes labeled `baby', and the stork from the Vlasic pickle commercials was stuffing a bundled something into one of them.

Great, I thought with a roll of my eyes. Now I know where babies come from.

The lobby had a lounge area, its couches occupied by Tony the Frosted Flakes tiger, a muscular big chinned guy that looked like Indiana Jones, and his pet eye patch wearing panther, the latter two, I believe, were Pitfall characters.

A vending machine to one side of the room contained Eek the Cat, his purple body blocking the view of all the fictional brand named products inside, and I witnessed the grumpy plumber alligator from Sweet Pickles pushing a janitor's cart out of an elevator.

I marched into an elevator next to him, staring at the buttons.

The building had roughly five hundred floors.

Room 2017, I thought.

I pushed 20 in hopes I'd find the room there, but that proved to be wishful thinking. I only found those twin purple haired girls from The Simpsons re-enacting a scene from The Shining and that cow from really old Mickey Mouse cartoons on that floor.

All the numbers were in the 200 range. I needed 2000.

When I returned to the elevator area, I nearly stepped into one shaped like a giant skull. I didn't think that would be a good idea, so I got in a regular one, and suddenly found myself in the company of Droopy Dog, who, I guess, worked part time as the elevator man.

A little dog with orange hair in a Frankenstein haircut, bags under his eyes, jowls. If I were a psychologist, I would diagnose him with psychothemia, or maybe a sleep disorder. Not my favorite animated character, but you couldn't choose them here.

He stood on a little stool, looking at me with a bored expression as he deadpanned, "What floor, sir?"

"Floor 2000," I said.

He pushed a button, and it's like I'm standing in a capsule blasting off a launch pad at Cape Canaveral. The G-forces were so extreme that I fell on the floor.

"Floor 2000, sir."

Seeing a line of cartoon characters waiting to trample me to get in, I pulled myself up on a rail and staggered out.

I was in a hallway, lined with scary looking doors and tall black framed windows overlooking rows of twisting buildings.

As I wandered from door to door, checking the room numbers, I accidentally bumped into an unfamiliar Archie's character with flowing red hair and glasses, knocking her shopping bags to the floor. Stuff scattered all over the place.

"Sorry, miss," I blurted.

I helped her pick up bags, clothing items, perfume bottles and other things.

Blue short sleeved blouse. Little black skirt. High heels and stockings. She was cute for a cartoon. I figured she would be fair competition for Betty and Veronica.

When our hands brushed each other, I saw little cartoon hearts floating out of her body.

"Thank you," she said with a nervous smile. "I...should really watch where I'm going."

She picked up more items.

"No," I said. "I was clumsy."

The girl offered a dainty hand. "Vanessa Vixx."

I shook it. "Drew Deebes."

Vanessa giggled. "Drew. That's cute. So. What brings you up to this floor?"

"Um, my dad's girlfriend wants to talk to her about something. I don't know." I just shrugged.

She picked up her bags and stood up. "You want to go out, you know, once you have your talk, and I have my things put away?"

I swallowed hard. "Uh, I don't think that's a good idea."

She turned red. "I'm only asking you out for coffee. I'm not asking you to come into my room and go to town!"

I chuckled, feeling a bit awkward. "Sorry. I'm...new to...Cool World. Coffee sounds fine."

"How about ice cream?" she said suddenly.

"Sure. Whatever you like."

She smiled. "I'll be at Hoofnagel's on third street. Don't take too long."

When she turned her back to me, I suddenly noticed a stripey orange tail poking out of her rear. I wasn't too surprised. I thought the addition made her look even cuter.

"Wait," I called. "Do you know where I can find Suite 2017?"

She pointed her tail in the direction opposite to the one I'd been traveling.

"I'd take what Holli says con grano salo."

I chuckled. "I see those glasses aren't just for looks."

"Not everything here is window dressing," she said as she glanced back.

When she turned a corner, I heard her add, "I have layers. Like an onion."

I laughed. "You just had to make Shrek sexy," I muttered.

Realizing what I just said, I covered my mouth in horror. "I need to get out of this place!"

Apartment 2017 had an oddly shaped polygonal door painted with brown-orange tiger stripes. I knocked and it came open.

Of course, being as it looked and felt like cardboard, I probably could have blown it open.

Inside, I found a vast room lined with archways, featuring a bar with a white tiger striped counter, a cardboard couch, a seventies style donut couch (I believe you would call it a `banquette'), and a large Victrola, that, strangely enough, showed an episode of Desperate Housewives like a movie projector.

A blonde with a puffy bun hairdo and a sleeveless white dress sat cross legged on a stool nearby, watching the program with great interest. At first she didn't even notice me enter the room.

"Uh...hi?" I ventured.

At last noticing me, she climbed off the stool, straightening her dress.

The outfit had a plunging neckline, and a wide slit running up the side, revealing her long slender legs.

"Drew Deebes..." She slid a hand up the slit, exposing more thigh as her palm and fingers made their way to her hip. "I've heard so much about you."