Mike, Man of Mystery was kind enough to post some blogging topics last week, and I am now going to answer my first one: Saturday morning cartoons: is there anything good on anymore? I say "my first one" because Stennie and Bet have already begun to tackle his topics.

Saturday morning cartoons were once a bastion of cleverness, humor, wit, and political satire, which very often gave a nod to their vaudevillian roots. The characters were often based on fable (think of the coyote, the wolf and the fox - all have negative reputations because of fables), folk lore and modern society. (think of the beagle-like image of the ever loyal Underdog).

Violence was pretty much limited to tension created by the food chain or had political underpinnings. Jerry the Mouse had to fend off Tom the Cat because Tom wanted to eat him. Of course, it was the barbaric way that Jerry went about tormenting the cat that we all laughed at, but come on, you too thought it was creative when Jerry painted himself with invisible ink and stuck Tom's tail in the electric socket.

The politics in The Road Runner is the cause for its violence - the Road Runner representing the hard working proletariat, the Wile E. Coyote embodies the oppression of the free market, forever trying to enslave the noble worker. No matter how cunning the capitalist machine works to outfox (or out coyote as it were) the common worker, victory is always given to the worker, who never complains, (have you ever heard R.R. say anything besides a humble "meep meep?" ) and trudges on, despite external pressure. And let's not forget Boris and Natasha - their desire to rule the world is fueled by a reaction to the McCarthyism of the day.

Back in the day, the cartoons themselves were works of art. Each cell was individually drawn by hand, sketched and colored by experts. It was a serious job, working on a 5-minute cartoon feature. Check out the carefully planned psychedelia of the Rocky The Flying Squirrel show, or the rich foresty colors used in Chip and Dale or Heckle and Jeckle the Talking Magpies. Children watching these cartoons were intelligent - it was assumed that the kids knew what was going on in the world and that they had a sense of history.

These shows encouraged critical thinking.You could tell what each character was supposed to be - mice looked like mice, little children looked like kids, people looked like buffoons.

But today? What cartoons do we have on a regular Saturday morning now? Well, for starters, Saturday Morning cartoons are becoming a thing of the past due to cable networks like Nickelodean and the Cartoon Network. Why should kids wait to watch cartoons on Saturday, when they can get them all day, every day. There is nothing special about Saturday morning anymore. Besides, shows like Saved by the Bell, which offer visions of "sexy" pre-teens are so much more "in".

The cartoons that do exist are pathetic. They cater to senseless violence, perverse stereotypes (ever notice the muscle definition on women characters? They're all pecs!) or what I like to call "pedantic la-la -ism" . The characters are based on robots or ridiculous ideals of beauty or weirdness, and there is absolutely no hearkening back to the historical, no reference to politics or current events. Cartoons on TV these Saturday mornings are used as marketing tools to get kids to want crappy action figures.

It isn't easy to find a cartoon fitting into the violence or the perverse stereotype category. In fact, those two tend to go hand in hand. Check out Pokéman, The Power Rangers, Digimon, the New Superfriends and so on and so on. The villains are all either battling for world power, or are simply being dastardly for the hell of it. They fail to cite any particular reason for wanting world dominion, and they don't seem to embody any particular political belief, except, of course, for consumerism. Have you checked out the body piercing in today's cartoons??? (I am refering to some Sk8er cartoon I caught my nephew watching the other week.)

The male characters are built like Superman on steroids (who lets face it, in the original series, was a real guy!) and the women are built like Dolly Parton in a bustier. The Japanese cartoons, which stem from a culture obsessed with little girls with big , round, blue eyes, wearing catholic school uniforms and knee socks, are major offenders, but they certainly are not the only ones. There was NO sexual tension in Speed Racer!

Pedantic la-la cartoons are Little Bear, Caillou, Dragon Tales and other poofed up cartoons, where the producers are so concerned with teaching the viewers a lesson on sharing or not setting one's house on fire, that they fail to entertain, and end up being insipid and condescending. While I do believe that cartoons should be able to reach the profoundly retarded too, I don't see why these children should be talked down to. Kids are pretty intelligent, or at least they used to be, when we expected them to reflect, ponder and THINK.

And the "art"? All of today's Saturday Morning cartoons are computer generated. All of the good cartoons are not on Saturday morning network TV - they are on
cable, public TV or they are on in the evening. Yes, I am talking about the Simpsons, but I am also thinking of Arthur and Pepper Ann. The art may not
be wonderful, but it doesn't suck either. The story lines are didactic, but without being condescending. And they have almost no violence. The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy and others in that ilk are meant for an adult audience and have no relevance to this essay.

My conclusion? Today's Saturday morning programming is completely useless. It teaches violence for no particular cause, encourages demonic behavior and does
nothing to build the character of the youth. No, there is nothing good on anymore. Send your progeny to the park.