by Mark
Sitting at the dinner table last night and Sarah (age 6) says to her sister “Emma stop being so pugnacious!” With my forkful of food halfway on it’s way into my mouth, I withdraw said forkful and said “Pugnacious?… okay, what do think Pugnacious means Sarah” to which she replied “it means somebody who likes to fight”.
The fork was still suspended midway between my plate and mouth as I processed this sudden leap in my children’s vocabulary. “That’s correct…and where have you heard the word pugnacious before?”. The answer: “Word Girl!”. For those of you who might not be familiar, Word Girl is a fantastic kids show on PBS that features a superhero little girl who uses words and definitions to fight evil doers. It’s a very well done show and I have to confess a comedic attraction to Captain Huggy Face the monkey sidekick. The girls often pause the show and call me to come in and watch the Captain Huggy Face parts of the show.
Which brings me to the point of this post. At what point did Cartoons become educational AND well-produced. I make that distinction because when I was a kid most of the educational cartoons were crap and the regular cartoons really did not have much in the way of redeeming social value.
I can’t think of a single thing that I learned from the cartoons when I was kid…but wait maybe I’m wrong. I did learn the following:
-Anvils are extremely common items and they were used only for dropping on heads. I don’t think I had a clue what an anvil was even used for until I hit 30.
-Related to my last point. All problems were solved with violence. It was the de facto standard. Had a problem with someone. Frying pan to the face. Problem solved.
-Most homes in cartoons were enormous. When Fred Flintstone was running in his house, it had to be easily the length of 3 football fields. I mean really. Count the numbers of “table… chair… lamp… table… chair… lamp” he runs by !
-The laws of gravity NEVER applied. NEVER. I have a good friend who spent too much time reading comic books and decided that it must be possible to go down the stairs without both feet touching them (much like the drawings always showed with both feet in the air at the same time). I still laugh out loud when I picture his family sitting in the living room as he came tumbling down the stairs and landed in a heap at the bottom.
-Children of the 1960’s and 1970’s were not discriminating in their choice of programming. I mean really…Hercules, Rocket Robin Hood, Max the 2000 year old Mouse, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. I could go on. Watch them today, it’s beyond me how they ever made it to air.
To be fair, when I was kid I loved all these cartoons and continued to love them longer than any sane adult should. When I was a teenager and in my early 20’s most of these cartoons became cool simply BECAUSE they were bad. I still can’t help watching Hercules when it’s on. It’s so bad, it’s good ! …and Gumby and Pokey ! Of course, I’d never let the kids watch that garbage. What a big waste of their time !
So how about you. What awful kids shows did you watch as a child ? HR PufnStuf ? Land of the Lost ? The Banana Splits ?