November 9, 2006

Cartoons

Boring.

That's the most succinct way for me to describe the shows and cartoons
that are on for children nowadays. I was trying to watch some stupid
thing my nephew was watching the other day, and could barely get
through ten minutes of it before I had to walk out of the room.

I think current network broadcasts are breeding a generation of
pansies with all that soft, boorish crud that kids are digesting every
day.

Where's the calamity? The gore? The wanton violence and blood lust
that I was privy to? I awoke each morning at 6am with two thoughts on
my still forming mind: Cartoons and cereal.

So with eyes wide with gleeful anticipation, and the next brutal
beating of one cartoon character by another imminent, I dove into my
Cheerios and kept the 'toons flowing.

Who says cartoons and early morning entertainment weren't educational?

I learned about physics. Like if you step off a cliff, you won't
actually fall until you realize that you're still hovering over empty
space. You usually get three running steps before you disappear in a
downward plume of smoke.

I also learned that umbrellas don't do squat when you jump off the
house. Mary Poppins is a goddamn liar.

I learned about drug use. If you can honestly tell me that Scooby and
the gang weren't smoking dope, then I'll personally buy you your own
Mystery Machine.

Plus, did you notice that Fred kept sending Velma, the closet lesbian,
with Shaggy, the shiftless hippy, and Scooby, the only dog with a
speech impediment, off on their own so that he could "search for
clues" with Daphne. Yeah, whatever Fred...nice neckerchief.

I learned about abstinence from watching the Smurfs. Since there were
about a hundred of those little blue freaks and only one was female.
Or maybe Smurfette was just a filthy smurfing whore.

I learned that when you take a young boy into your home and share with
him your love of tight spandex, manservants, and cave dwelling you're
not a pedophile...you're Batman. And he's not a scarred, abused youth
in need of therapy...he's Robin, the Boy Wonder. I think it's more
like...the Boy's Wondering what the hell he's doing with this this
creepy guy sporting the codpiece.

I learned that creativity can come from anywhere. I personally feel
that Sid and Marty Kroft must have been eating handfuls of blotter
acid before they created H.R. Pufnstuf. That show freaked me out, but
strangely enough babysitters and older relatives with bloodshot eyes
for some reason thought it was hilarious.

I learned that the dinosaurs from Land of the Lost would eat that
silly stupid stuffed Barney the Purple Dinosaur. That's if the
Sleestaks didn't get him first.

Then there's the crowning achievement of all violent cartoons: Tom and
Jerry. That frisky cat and smarmy mouse did battle for decades, never
once wavering from their pervasive onslaught of pain and torture upon
one another. I'm not really sure what the ASPCA's official feeling was
about the show, but it couldn't have been very positive.

I also learned that hitting your brother in the head with a frying pan
doesn't change the shape of his head into a frying pan. Oh, and a fire
cracker blowing up in your hand/face doesn't actually turn you black
from the explosion. It only results in second degree burns and
lifelong ligament damage. Whouda thunk it?


So when you hear people discussing my age group as the "Lost
Generation", don't readily take that erroneous pablum as
truth...because it's not. After all the violence, creepy animated
adventures and drug addled television we've seen growing up, we're not
lost...we're just hiding.