On Cartoons

Editor's Note: The following post might end up sounding like Andy Rooney. If you are one of those people who turn off 60 minutes before he starts talking, you might not enjoy this post. Sorry, but I just have to post on this subject, and I can't think of a way to do it without sounding like an old man with bushy eyebrows.

What the hell happened to cartoons? It's the weekend. It's the morning. Why can't I find any good cartoons? The stuff that is on is garbage. And it's not just network television. The stuff on cable isn't much better. As I see it, I have at least 4 channels that should get me some quality cartoons: Cartoon Network, Noggin, Nick, and Disney. Cartoon Network comes closest. They at least carry some good old school cartoons, they just bury them. In college we found out that they had the smurfs, but they only had them on from 3-4 AM. For about a week we set our alarm clocks for 3AM and woke up for smurfs. And by 'we', I mean I convinced my roommates that they should wake up and watch smurfs with me.

Anyway, Cartoon Network seems to save prime time for this anime stuff. I think there's an accent mark somewhere in Anime, but since I don't understand or like it, I'm not going to dignify it with proper punctuation. I tried to give this anime stuff a shot. I just don't get it. Put it in a box with Harry Potter, Radiohead, and Fax Machines. Label the box "Stuff that I really tried to understand but I just don't get it."

So Cartoon Network is out. So are Nick and Disney. I try to watch them sometimes. When Kate is around, she calls me a dirty old man (it's usually some tween comedy on there) for watching Disney. Doesn't Disney have the licensing rights to all of their cartoons? Why spend money creating new shows when they could just show today's kids all of the stuff that we watched? And every time I turn on Nickelodeon, that damn Drake and Josh show is on. I don't know why, but something makes me want to punch those kids. 

And then there's Noggin. I watched a couple hours of Noggin last night (we'll call it research) and almost had a seizure. Somewhere between "Pinky Dinky Doo" and "Wa Wa Wubzy" I realized that they aren't even trying with plot or character development. It's basically just a bunch of shapes and bright colors bouncing around. We should show this stuff to terrorists to try to break them. I'm no scientist, but I think Noggin is one of the major causes of half of the child population being on Ritalin. 

So I'm starting my own cartoons-only station. Here's a sample day of programming:

6:00 AM - 8:00 AM - Smurfs. I love Smurfs.

8:00 AM - 9:00 AM - Woody Woodpecker. Basically just so I can watch Chilly Willy. He really made that show.

9:00 - 10:00 - Tiny Toon Adventures. Mostly for the theme song.

10:00 - 11:00 - Scooby Doo. We'd put a strong emphasis on episodes that included the Harlem Globetrotters

11:00 - Noon - Garfield + U.S. Acres. The U.S. Acres characters really made this show. I mean, a walking talking egg? A pig named Orson? I think this was the only cartoon pig not named after a pig food product. Think about it, they aways name them stuff like Bacon or Hampton or Porky. Lame.

Noon - 1:00 - Muppet Babies. I put this on at noon because some days I'm gone at lunch, and I don't think I could take baby gonzo and baby fozzy everyday. They overact sometimes. 

1:00 - 2:00 - Duck Tales. I always wanted to go swimming in Uncle Scrooge's money.

2:00 - 3:00 - Captain Planet. Terrible show, but I do an awesome impression of Ma-Ti (the 'Heart' character)

3:00 - 4:00 - Inspector Gadget. Great show. Penny was hot. There, I said it.

4:00 - 5:00 - Gummy Bears. I now think that some company like Balco created this show so that people who grew up in the 80s wouldn't see anything wrong with taking something like steroids to get bigger, faster and stronger. It's basically just Gummy Berry Juice, right?

5:00 - 6:00 - Thundercats. Snarf.

6:00 - 7:00 - Heathcliff. I have no idea why he doesn't get more respect as a good cartoon. He is so much cooler than Garfield. They're pretty much the same cat, but Heathcliff is out being a badass at a junkyard while Garfield is just sitting on his fat ass talking about lasagna and listening to his whiny owner. Sorry for the language, but I'm pretty passionate about this one. Oh, and I've always wanted to hook up John Arbuckle with Cathy (Eeek!). I think they'd be perfectly miserable together. 

So that's my daily programming. There are plenty of others that we can put in from 7P - 6A. I have a few others that I like, but none of them deserve a daily slot. If you'd like to make a case for your favorite cartoon, I'll take it into consideration.