Cartoons Then and Now...or Why my kids are more well-adjusted than I am

Recently I was watching some cartoons with my kids and it occurred to me how different these cartoons are from when I grew up.  Almost every cartoon I watched with them, from Octonauts to Special Agent Oso to Mickey Mouse Club to Handy Manny all had some educational or social component to it.  Contrast that to the cartoons I grew up watching such as Scooby Doo, The Looney Tunes, Captain Caveman and Josie and the Pussycats and it quickly became obvious that the children today are getting a very different message than I did when watching these shows.

So let’s compare and contrast some key messages from then and now.

Cartoons Now

·         Educate on Marine Life.  The Octonauts motto is Explore, Rescue, and Protect.  Pretty nice messages for kids right?  In each episode, not only do these underwater characters show they care about others, they also educate kids to all sorts of marine life.  Just recently I learned about both how Algae grows as well as that the only Iguana’s in the world that swim live off the coast of the Galapagos Islands.

·         Teach kids a second language and expose them to new cultures.  Yes, Dora the Explorer has the longest and most unnatural pauses in cartoon history.  Yes, it makes no sense that some animals talk and other's don’t.  However, by speaking in both English and Spanish she starts the process of educating kids at a young age to not just multi-languages, but also different cultures.

·         Help kids conquer early challenges.  On recent episodes of Special Agent Oso, this bear special agent has taught kids everything from proper manners while eating to how to line up for a fire drill to how to color in coloring books.  Yes, I have a higher bar for the qualifications of “special agents” but at least he wasn’t part of that advanced security team in Colombia who got busted for stiffing…er short-changing a “working girl”.

·         Teach kids teamwork.  My kids will watch Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald & Daisy worked together to solve problems.  OK, I still don’t know what Goofy is.  If he is a Dog, why does he talk and Pluto doesn’t?  And does Mickey have an ego problem?  Everything is named after him.  Mouse-a-hey, Mouse-a-hi, Mouse-a-toe here we go?  Really Mickey?  I see him as some sort of Kingpin who makes everyone kiss his ring finger and refers to himself in the 3^rd person.  Ok I digress, as I was saying…Teamwork.

Cartoons Then

·         Encourage you to practice with guns.  I don’t think Elmer Fudd could hit the broad side of a barn, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying.  He would load up his gun and go out to try to shoot and kill our favorite Rabbit Bugs Bunny.  Think about that.  What if Swiper from Dora didn’t just try to steal Dora’s stars, but rather, came up behind her with a hunting knife and tried to cut her throat every episode?  Pretty messed up stuff Warner Brothers, pretty messed up indeed.

·         Teach us that old people usually commit crimes.  I think every episode of Scooby Doo ended up with the old caretaker being unmasked as the ghost/monster/all around bad guy.  As they were being taken away, they would have the parting words for the cops of “I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling kids.”  The morale of Scooby Doo?  Don’t trust anyone over the age of 40.

·         No matter the question, violence IS the answer.  Back in the day, a child may have the question “How should I deal with conflict?”  Well let’s look to our cartoons to see what they would recommend.  Tom and Jerry.  Wile-E-Coyote and the Roadrunner.  He-Man and Skeletor.  Woody Woodpecker and every other character on the show.  These shows were basically telling kids two things.  1)  If you don’t like someone, try to take them out…with dynamite if necessary.  And 2) if you do try to take them out, do not get products from ACME.

OKAY, I must note that yes, I did grow up with Schoolhouse Rock.  I still sing (to myself) Conjunction Junction What’s Your Function…although I still do not know what a conjunction’s function is.  And the real truth is that this show was just something bridging the time between Blue-Falcon & Dynomut and Jabber jaw.

Now I realize why my four year old kids are more well-adjusted than I am.  It all ties back to the cartoons!  And I won’t get started on kids of the 90’s.  With South Park and Robot Chicken, I don’t know how they survived.