This image was lost some time after publication.

By our count, the major Hollywood studios have released 107 films featuring computer-animated, talking animals since January of this year, a numbing procession of disappointing, nearly indistinguishable offerings like The Wild, The Ant Bully, Barnyard, A Prairie Home Companion, Over the Hedge, Akeelah and the Bee, and Garfield: Lasagna Inspector that's clogged the multiplex and mostly failed to capture the imaginations of children accustomed to being mindlessly entertained by wisecracking CGI critters. Today's NY Times takes a look at the animation glut currently reaching critical mass, which threatens to confuse—and worse, bore—their core audience, but which for the time being is still producing product that achieves its primary goal: giving grandparents a way to keep this generation of ADHD-addled kids quiet in between Ritalin doses:

Natalie Ward, 13, who was out shopping with her grandmother, Bonnie Ward, in Hollywood recently, was unimpressed with the latest offerings. "There are so many movies with animals," she said, pursing lips tinged blue by the icy neon drink in her hand. "The ones about cows are too, like, I don't know — boring." [...]

DreamWorks' financial machinations mean little to Bonnie Ward, Natalie Ward's grandmother — unless the studio stops making interesting movies. She said she enjoyed "Over the Hedge," even if the movie's humor was sometimes a little grown-up.

"They aren't all perfect," she said of the new fare. "But it is something for me to do with my little grandchildren."

We fear that this anecdote will finally embolden studios to lower their already liberal greenlight threshold for animated projects to an affirmative answer to a single question like, "Sure, it's going to cost $125 million and bore the shit out of the kids after ten minutes, but does Cowz With Attitudez pass the Tired Grandma Test?", all but ensuring that this current Golden Age of Mouthy Ruminants will never end.