Cartoon Lessons

This morning I was forced to watch cartoons, as I rested in the recliner at my girlfriend’s apartment – she somehow finds a way to cheerfully exist without cable. My first reaction was to swiftly change the channel only to find a handful of grainy television shows and a couple news stations. To my slight disappointment, I settled on channel 13 NBC Indianapolis where, to my surprise, the cartoons shown weren’t bad at all. Actually, they caught my interest and took me away from my beloved GQ Magazine (now, that’s saying something).

I watched a cleverly written Veggie Tales episode about telling the truth and being faithful to your friends. In the episode the Asparagus broke his father’s glass plate and was then, convinced to lie about doing so by a small blob aptly named Fib. At first, the Asparagus told his father that he didn’t know how the plate was broken. After that, Fib convinced him to pin the incident on his friends, which made Fib grow. After a few more lies, the Fib grew into a giant Lie, stomping through the streets, ready to devour the Asparagus.

The Fib-turned-Lie was killed when Asparagus decided to tell the truth. The moral of the story was simple, but I loved the way it was done. While the cartoon may be for little kids, even a big kid like me can enjoy such a program and have simple moral values reinforced. Some adults could use a dose of Veggie Tales.

After Veggie Tales ended a cartoon about a group of car-racing dogs (I can’t remember the name) came on and emphasized the importance of sharing the things we have. The cartoon also stressed the importance of not judging others on what they have or don’t have.

Another came on featuring a bear that lacked confidence, as he continually failed to catch acorns falling from a tree. A friend of his encouraged, instilling in him the confidence he needed in order to achieve his dream – catching an acorn in, this case.

In today’s worrisome, lying, cheating, stealing, do anything you can to get by even if it means taking advantage of others and compromising our character and dignity-world its refreshing to see that today’s youth are having the right moral values reinforced from their cartoon shows. I admit that I don’t remember watching many cartoons like these when I was a kid, but I’m glad they’re being emphasized now. It lets me know that there is hope for youngsters everywhere.