kids cartoons - part 1

Has anyone watched todays kids cartoons? Probably not, if you don't have children.

Well, let me assure you that todays kids are getting some quality television cartoons -- unlike the children from the past twenty years.

Tops on my list for cartoons is Spongebob Squarepants. If you haven't seen the cartoon, it's almost certain you've seen the merchandising.

What makes Spongebob so popular is that it's FUNNY. For those of us who were children in the 60's we might ask, "Yeah? Aren't cartoons supposed to be funny?" One would think so, but that hasn't been the standard in cartoon-land for a looooong time. Spongebob is funny for the sake of being funny. It is stupid, for the sake of being funny. It does not try to squeeze a moral in to each story. It is entertainment. Pure, simple, fun, funny entertainment. It is a throwback to the days of the good Tom & Jerry cartoons -- complete with eye-popping violence that is so ridiculous that no child will ever try to emulate it.

And of course it is the cartoon that the christian conservatives are trying to ban.

Number two on my list of todays best cartoons is The Fairly Odd Parents. This cartoon is also funny, but also delves into the realm of 'anything-is-possible-in-a-cartoon' -- ala those great old MGM cartoons. Again we have stupidity for the sake of humor, but we also have a main character whose every wish is granted by his fairy godparents, and so the wishes in each episode are limited only by a child's imagination. This cartoon manages to sneak in an over-all moral ("be careful what you wish for"), but the writing is superb. A classic episode is one in which the main character wishes for silence, and the entire episode is then done with music, but no dialog. A disaster is about to strike (a meteor is speeding toward his hometown) and our character can't avert it because he can't speak, so he can't wish for his fairy godparents to send it away.

The supporting cast for Fairly Odd Parents is part of makes this cartoon really fun to watch. The leader of all the fairies is a militaristic, Arnold Schwartzenegger type. Our lead character, Timmy, is a comic-book fan, and his favorite comicbook hero is "The Crimson Chin" -- whom we often see in action.

Third on my list is Jimmy Neutron. I don't watch this with my children too much, but I am amazed by the animation. Jimmy is an egg-head genius who still goes to a regular elementary school and is in every other way a typical little boy -- always wanting to build new super things and not being able to figure out the girls. The animation is that "3-D" animation used in such movies as Shrek and A Bug's Life. That a regular cartoon can be created with this advanced style of animation is really amazing.