Thank You, Television.

     You know that friend who proudly (and sometimes smugly) tells you that he never watches television? Am I the only one who wants to punch that friend in the throat? Poo-pooing television is like talking shit about my favorite babysitter when I was kid – which is exactly what television was. I got into television in large part because I watched so much of it. I got into voiceover because I would literally watch cartoons all day on Saturdays, from 5:30 in the morning (This was when old Tom and Jerry shorts were running), right up to lunch-time (Scooby Doo, or The All New Scooby Doo, or Scooby Doo and Scrappy Doo). Six and a half hours of cartoons, every Saturday, and it was awesome. Here, in no particular order, are some of my all-time favorite cartoons, and why:

     *Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: The years 1930 to 1969 are generally considered to be the Golden Age of American Animation, and I grew up on a steady diet of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, etc. What I loved particularly about these series was that they combined two of my favorite mediums: comedy and music. And the timing of Mel Blanc was nothing short of genius.

     *Johnny Quest: Are you fucking kidding me? A boy gets to travel around the world with his scientist dad, having adventures. Oh, and he also got to hang out with a bad-ass pseudo-uncle with one of the greatest action-hero names ever (Race Bannon), and his best friend, a diversity hire named Hadji. He even got to bring along his fucking dog. This was the life I wanted with my dad, knowing all the while I was never going to have it.

     *Schoolhouse Rock: I shit you not. To this day I still wouldn’t understand any kind of math AT ALL if it weren’t for Three is a Magic Number, My Hero Zero, Lucky Seven Samson, and Naughty Number Nine. I can trace my inner history nerd directly back to No More Kings, The Preamble, and I’m Just A Bill. Thank you, Schoolhouse Rock. You made learning not suck.

     *Hong Kong Phooey: You think you could get away with a title like that in our 21^st century, over-sensitive, politically correct culture? I admired HKP, not because he was a clever, ass-kicking hero (he was a bungler who usually fell ass-backward into success), but because he had a ton of heart. He believed in himself, and that was all he fucking needed. Plus, he was voiced by Scatman Crothers, who was in real life a lot like his animated counterpart: a ton of heart.

     And in the 70s (and very early 80s), Saturday morning was also the time for live action adventure shows. Remember the Krofft shows? Sid and Marty Krofft were Canadian brothers who, in the 60s, must have done some truly experimental psychoactive drugs, because that is the only plausible explanation to some of the weird, trippy shit they dreamed up to put on television, which I ate up with the same spoon I used for my Cap’n Crunch. To wit:

     

     Four wacked-out talking animals ( but not Snorky the elephant) hang out in their clubhouse ALL DAY and make music. And you're telling me they weren't toking it up when the cameras weren't rolling?

     

     It is my firm belief that the Krofft brothers were telling us to our faces what they were up to here. A talking dragon named Pufnstuf, who lives in an alternate reality where things are glittery and bright all the time, and where a witch occasionally comes along and scares the shit out of everybody. 'Nuff said.

     

    

Motherfucking SLEESTAKS, y'all. I rest my case.

     I'm a parent now, and so I worry like most parents that my daughter is getting too much screen time. But that's because there are so many more screens. If you're my generation, TV was the only game in town when we were kids. And yeah, we watched a lot of it, but then we got up off our asses and went outside. Because after every episode of Battle of the Planets, or Superfriends, or even Land of the Motherfuckingsleestak Lost, I wanted to get outside, grab a couple of my friends from the neighborhood, and go be the hero in those stories I just saw. You know: make some shit up. TV used to fire people's imaginations, instead of what a lot of it does today, which is make people feel better about themselves after watching a half hour of "reality," and people who are willing to say or do or be anything producers want, just so they can be on TV. That's not really feeling better about yourself, in my opinion. That's just looking for a bar lower than yours.

     Give me talking dogs and falling anvils and, yes, sleestaks - any day.