April’s game Sam & Max is maybe also a good comparison point! Sam & Max came out in 1993 and Toonstruck would’ve come out much closer to it than it did if the production had been smoother. But Sam & Max genuinely is coming from the underground/indie comics direction (through Purcells) and when you look at it from the way you framed for Toonstruck, it’s a big difference.
Of course, I think Sam and Max too is dated, but not really from the perspective of its release year!
Still thinking a bit more from Toonstruck’s Animaniacs comparison, classic WB cartoons were having a renaissance in the early 90s. Tiny Toons had ended by 1996, Animaniacs was still going, Space Jam was also out in 1996. (I remember playing a SNES Tiny Toons game at friends’..) I don’t think Toonstruck was completely out of sync, but it was a little bit behind the curve perhaps.
