My boys and I happened across the Boomerang Network a few weeks ago. It is a channel that plays old school cartoons almost exclusively and my kids took to it immediately. They forgot all about Noggin’, Nick Jr. and Playhouse Disney. Everyday it would be, “Can we watch Yogi Bear?” or “Can we watch Hong Kong Phooey?” While watching these shows with my kids, I realized that childrens’ cartoons have taken a drastic turn in the last few decades. But which era is the one that they should be learning from?
The Old Way
A few of the toons on this channel make me want to cover my childrens’ eyes. ”Top Cat” is about a low life street cat that leads his gang on scams and heists. They show him swigging milk like whiskey and treating women (girl cats) like objects. One “Tom and Jerry” episode made me and my husband reach for the off button in a hurry. It showed Tom recapping a bad few weeks and at the end he was sitting on the train tracks wait for a train to come. I have very fond memories from watching Tom and Jerry as a kid. But watching it as an adult shows me just how much violence and and adult content it contains. Other shows like “Yogi Bear” and “The Flinstones” teach kids good lessons like it doesn’t pay to be sneaky or underhanded and that family is more important that things. But even these were peppered with words I don’t allow my kids to use like “stupid” and “moron”.
The New Way
The majority of what my kids watch are the younger, educational shows like “Dora the Explorer” and “Little Bear.” But for the purpose of comparison to the shows above, I think the target audience is more in line with the “SpongeBob SquarePants” age range. Although shows like “Fairly Odd Parents,” “SpongeBob” and “Jimmy Neutron” still use a lot of the same sophomoric language as in the shows of yore, the violence has been toned down significantly. Instead, it seems to have been replaced with a gross out factor. Check out this article for details of the grossness in current SpongeBob episodes. http://www.kidglue.com/2009/09/01/spongebob-squarepants-now-caters-to-lowest-common-denominator/ Also, any racial connotations from the older cartoons have been completely erased in this newer generation.
Which Is Better?
So which one do you prefer? Personally I go for the newer ones because the humor isn’t so dated. But I cannot deny the retro appeal of simpler times that the old ones represent either. When it comes to the influence they have on kids, I guess the choice is would I rather my sons be hitting each other or farting in each other’s faces. Neither really. So I guess it all still comes down to the ageless principal of parental supervision whenever the old boob tube is on.
