All hail Levar Burton, Keeper of the Books
So, I figured more out. So many real thinkers from my generation, most of them on drugs and disassociating with reality.
So, I was trying to figure out... How is it possible that my generation also produced the superdunders I so often encounter, in my age bracket-- They're not in that state because they're chemically affected, it's something else.
Then it hit me.
When I was growing up, there was CTW. They made TV, during my single-digit years, for the express purpose of prodding minds toward thinking, and equipping them to do so, including a heavy dose of processing strategy (this was before education/edutainment, etc became popular pseudoconcepts/buzzwords). Others did similar shows, but with less developed doctrine driving them.
So, we're talking about 3-2-1 Contact, Newton's Apple, Reading Rainbow, Square One TV, Bill Nye (to an extent) in the later years, and the earlier Sesame street-- Which I remember as a collection of wicked sick music montages, interrupted by routines involving possessed stuffed animals, yammering incoherently. Notable exceptions were Oscar the grouch, Mr. Hooper and that furry elephant beast. Oscar was my kind of people, and snuffleupagus often had useful observations.
There were also shows like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Good writing. Hilarious. Nearly all the great qualities were lost on the demographic that worshiped it. It was just too old for its audience. If parents had watched it, they would have loved it.
Then, there was dragon ball z. Mom wouldn't let us watch that. Or the turtles. Religious crap, or whatever reasons.
Sometimes, thank god for religious crap.
Here's Dragon Ball Z in a nutshell: Poorly behaved manchildren, causing mass distruction, posturing, and arguing about whose numbers are bigger than whose. There isn't a lot of thinking, there's some humor, some GOOD jokes-- SOME, and a whole lot of "Isn't that guy dead?"... The messages it could effectively pass to children, were that you could act like a nut, throw tantrums, never get in trouble, never die, and that committing genocide was easy, flashy and fun for the whole family.
I would have jammed all manner of poison-tipped sharp utensils up the combatant's backside, while they were squaring off, posturing, and generally wasting each other's time, trying to make themselves feel comfortable being total losers. I would clearly have also had plenty of time to steal all of their women and such, while they made a speech beginning with "you dare to..." to a cardboard likeness of me, which was complete with a disco ball, spotlight and fog machine for visual effect, a moving mouth and a speech box, repeating simply "HAHAHA!".
The generation before me, was brought up in a time known as "the dark ages of cartoons". The most notable diamond in the ruff was the much-loved Scooby-Doo... But, let's face it-- That's a diamond in the ruff, like finding your parent's stash of pot while they're out on a bender, again. Pot is all well and good, but nothing really comes of it, and, in the end, it's really only refuge from abandonment.
The generation after? The network that brought me the CTW shows, brought Barney to my little brothers. Mom had left some of her insanity behind, after seeing that... She could find no religious objection, in her preferred flavors, and had to object based solely on the fact that the show was a flaming turd, being thrown in the face of her children, carrying a payload of mind-rot.
While my little brothers had Barney, we had graduated to older kid's programming, like Animaniacs, followed by the spinoff Pinky and the Brain, and Freakazoid! After they finished insulting everyone, they were labeled "edutainment". The amount of facts presented was lean, thinking was taught, but not processing. What they taught was to question the world, trends and decisions. They also promoted an understanding of historical parallels, human behavior, political situations, biases and an appreciation for music and the performing arts.
I'm digging up those shows for my kids. Maybe there's some new things out there, that I would plop them down in front of. There wasn't much for kids under five, that I remember... I have heard a few good things in that area, recently.
By the way-- After having watched DBZ (kind of), it's clear that I wouldn't have needed mom's objection to japanese blah blah. Why? Because I would have been SO drooling bored, watching that show... Well, I would have certainly ignored all those TV spots at the time, that were begging me not to play with matches.
So, I was trying to figure out... How is it possible that my generation also produced the superdunders I so often encounter, in my age bracket-- They're not in that state because they're chemically affected, it's something else.
Then it hit me.
When I was growing up, there was CTW. They made TV, during my single-digit years, for the express purpose of prodding minds toward thinking, and equipping them to do so, including a heavy dose of processing strategy (this was before education/edutainment, etc became popular pseudoconcepts/buzzwords). Others did similar shows, but with less developed doctrine driving them.
So, we're talking about 3-2-1 Contact, Newton's Apple, Reading Rainbow, Square One TV, Bill Nye (to an extent) in the later years, and the earlier Sesame street-- Which I remember as a collection of wicked sick music montages, interrupted by routines involving possessed stuffed animals, yammering incoherently. Notable exceptions were Oscar the grouch, Mr. Hooper and that furry elephant beast. Oscar was my kind of people, and snuffleupagus often had useful observations.
There were also shows like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Good writing. Hilarious. Nearly all the great qualities were lost on the demographic that worshiped it. It was just too old for its audience. If parents had watched it, they would have loved it.
Then, there was dragon ball z. Mom wouldn't let us watch that. Or the turtles. Religious crap, or whatever reasons.
Sometimes, thank god for religious crap.
Here's Dragon Ball Z in a nutshell: Poorly behaved manchildren, causing mass distruction, posturing, and arguing about whose numbers are bigger than whose. There isn't a lot of thinking, there's some humor, some GOOD jokes-- SOME, and a whole lot of "Isn't that guy dead?"... The messages it could effectively pass to children, were that you could act like a nut, throw tantrums, never get in trouble, never die, and that committing genocide was easy, flashy and fun for the whole family.
I would have jammed all manner of poison-tipped sharp utensils up the combatant's backside, while they were squaring off, posturing, and generally wasting each other's time, trying to make themselves feel comfortable being total losers. I would clearly have also had plenty of time to steal all of their women and such, while they made a speech beginning with "you dare to..." to a cardboard likeness of me, which was complete with a disco ball, spotlight and fog machine for visual effect, a moving mouth and a speech box, repeating simply "HAHAHA!".
The generation before me, was brought up in a time known as "the dark ages of cartoons". The most notable diamond in the ruff was the much-loved Scooby-Doo... But, let's face it-- That's a diamond in the ruff, like finding your parent's stash of pot while they're out on a bender, again. Pot is all well and good, but nothing really comes of it, and, in the end, it's really only refuge from abandonment.
The generation after? The network that brought me the CTW shows, brought Barney to my little brothers. Mom had left some of her insanity behind, after seeing that... She could find no religious objection, in her preferred flavors, and had to object based solely on the fact that the show was a flaming turd, being thrown in the face of her children, carrying a payload of mind-rot.
While my little brothers had Barney, we had graduated to older kid's programming, like Animaniacs, followed by the spinoff Pinky and the Brain, and Freakazoid! After they finished insulting everyone, they were labeled "edutainment". The amount of facts presented was lean, thinking was taught, but not processing. What they taught was to question the world, trends and decisions. They also promoted an understanding of historical parallels, human behavior, political situations, biases and an appreciation for music and the performing arts.
I'm digging up those shows for my kids. Maybe there's some new things out there, that I would plop them down in front of. There wasn't much for kids under five, that I remember... I have heard a few good things in that area, recently.
By the way-- After having watched DBZ (kind of), it's clear that I wouldn't have needed mom's objection to japanese blah blah. Why? Because I would have been SO drooling bored, watching that show... Well, I would have certainly ignored all those TV spots at the time, that were begging me not to play with matches.