TheWorkingDead
Posts 216
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12/3/2007 12:33 AM
posted awhile ago
Animated Obsessions
You know, when talking about cartoons I usually mention my daughter by way of explaining why I watch so damn many cartoons all the time. The truth is; I'd be watching them anyway. I've always loved cartoons, from my childhood watching Looney Tunes repackaged in hour long blocks on local television, to my pre-adolescence watching 24 hours of cartoons on a really nifty(and much missed) UHF station, even through those painful years when it wasn't "cool" to know what the Rescue Rangers were up to and I had to keep my obsession a secret. Luckily my generation has decided to collectively not grow up, and there is now a certain cultural cache associated with knowing all the character names from Jayce & The Wheeled Warriors. I don't have cable, so aside from a few DVDs, most of the cartoons I watch are old. The two notable exceptions are Spongebob and Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends, both of which fill me with joy everytime I watch an episode, even though by now I've watched every disc probably a dozen times(Pandora LOVES Spongebob). I recently picked up the Popeye collection, although I can't watch that until after christmas(it's a good thing Amber doesn't spend her days on the internet like I do), and of course have begun picking up the Looney Tunes collections. But there are some awesome ones from the eighties that I didn't expect to enjoy now that I'm no longer a wide-eyed, tasteless kid. Gummi Bears... I love it. It's cute, sweet, charming, kid friendly, all that stuff. But it also amazed me how much it held up. Sure I liked it when I was 7, but I'm 29 now, and I still enjoyed it. For those not in the know, the story takes place in medieval England(or some ficticious fuedal kingdom), and Gummi Bears are creatures of myth that mother's tell their children of. Except they're real, the only reason people don't believe in them is because they've all gone away. Centuries in the past the growing rivalry between humans and gummis forced the bears to sail across the ocean, leaving a small outpost behind as caretakers, to signal when it would be safe to return. Now, generations later, their descendants have forgotten their purpose. I like all the small touches, like how they don't remember how to work most of the technology, or how they aren't even aware of all the things in their own homes. One episode dealt with them finding a signal to contact the long-lost Gummi tribes with, only to be forced to destroy it before their nemesis Duke Igthorn could use it as a weapon. It wasn't as plot-driven as Gargoyles(which became VERY continuity heavy) or Pirates of Dark Water, but it still had a scope and mystery, and sometimes a sadness to it(as evidenced by the plot above) that I wasn't used to seeing in cartoons at the time. Around season 3 two of the Gummis set sail and run into an island surrounded by waterfalls where a lone Gummi Bear has been shipwrecked for years. They brought him back home with them, and it was that rare instance in children's cartoons where the status quo was changed forever, albeit only slightly. There were entire episodes where he wasn't even mentioned, but it was still a welcome attempt to stir thing up. It may seem odd to hold such a minor disney cartoon up on such a pedestal, but it's one of those shows from my childhood that surprised me in how well it holds up, and it's worth a look to anyone who's a member of this group. Any favorite cartoon series'? Ack! How can they not link to Gummi Bears on here? They have individual episodes of every other adult oriented television show. Maybe we should demand they show love to those shows we loved as kids!
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