Cel-Shaded Depression

By Joshua Love, Rocky Mountain Bullhorn
Posted on March 12, 2005, Printed on December 4, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/21458/

Why are anti-depressants prescribed at a breakneck pace to today's adults who grew up in the '60s, '70s and '80s? Some say it's a direct result of the childhood trauma associated with rising divorce rates during the last few decades. Others say increasing economic disparity is to blame. Still others point the finger at the growing complexity of everyday life.

But they're wrong.

I believe the problem stems from primetime cartoon specials made for children. With their bittersweet tales and depressing flute solos, primetime cartoon specials have done more to damage the collective psyche of a generation than any school shooting or war ever could. Let's look at some examples:

Snoopy, Come Home. Ah yes, Charlie Brown cartoons, always a harbinger of conflicted feelings. In short time, they made me see the spinning neon "A CBS Special Presentation" logo as a swirling vortex of despair. This story begins with Snoopy running away from his owner Charlie Brown, leaving Charlie feeling even more worthless than usual. Snoopy is on a quest to visit his former owner, a little girl who is hospitalized by pneumonia or cartoon leukemia or something. It's an unending struggle for Snoopy to see his sick little friend because everywhere he goes there are signs proclaiming, "No Dogs Allowed" (which is also sung aloud in order to further drive the point home).

Within minutes of finally reaching her, Snoopy gets kicked out of the hospital and returns to ol' Chuck, whom he continues to treat like a barely tolerated annoyance. Children's cartoons are supposed to be happy little Technicolor diversions, damn it – not tales of hard choices and impending death. I still can't look at a package of Dolly Madison Zingers without falling to the floor, quivering in a puddle of my own misery.

It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. Linus and his tattered blanket have a very special belief system. They believe, just as the Aztecs did, that every Halloween, the Great Pumpkin will appear in the local pumpkin patch to fill them with religious ecstasy and maybe grant wishes. So, Linus and his blanket stay up late every night waiting for his seeded orange totem to appear, but it never does.

Finally, Sally, who is sweet on Linus, joins him in his ritual on Halloween night. They wait for hours for the big moment, until finally, the Great Pumpkin appears off in the distance, rising to make Linus' dreams come true. Only it turns out that it's Snoopy. And does Sally console a heartbroken Linus, her Sweet Baboo, upon his discovery that maaaybe he placed his faith in the wrong religion? Hell, no! Instead, she yells at him for being an idiot. The moral of the story is never believe in anything, and if you are stupid enough to, make sure you don't drag someone who has a crush on you into your special magic world, because she will destroy you.

Frosty the Snowman. Magical beings can come to life, but only if they steal from nasty old magicians. Evil triumphs, and friends made of snow melt so that children can stay warm. But, as Jimmy Durante sings, Frosty will be back again some day, perhaps as some sort of snow zombie. Until then, live your warm summer days alone and miserable.

Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey. A donkey from the days of the Roman Empire has very long ears that always cause him trouble and get him taunted by his peers. As an added bonus, his mom dies. But do you know who that donkey grew up to be? The very donkey that brought the Virgin Mary to Bethlehem so that she could give birth to Jesus! The donkey ended up as one of the lesser-known Gifts of the Magi: glue.

Really Rosie. This cartoon is based on the book Chicken Soup with Rice by Maurice Sendak. When reading this tale as a child, I imagined the rhyming structure being spoken by a bass-voiced individual who gave the poetry a funky, syncopated cadence. Sadly, that's not the case with the cartoon. Quite the opposite happens, as a matter of fact. They got Carole King, who sings the tale with her weepy my-husband-beats-me-nightly voice. Now, what once read as a fun tale about a beloved dinner product eaten throughout the year, instead comes across as folky goth bitterness. She better stay away from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, if she knows what's good for her.

With cartoons like these, is it any wonder why children eventually turned to cartoons that were little more than commercials for chunks of plastic? Sure Optimus Prime died every once in a while, but hey, he's just a plastic robot truck, not a little dying girl whose dog abandons her – twice!

If you have kids, I implore you: Avoid letting them watch the bittersweet stuff until they're in high school. Just hook 'em on frivolous pap with confusing names like "Boobah" and "Yu-Gi-Oh" until they start shaving, and I guarantee that they will be much more well-adjusted than you are.

Joshua Love is a contributor to the Rocky Mountain Bullhorn.

© 2009 Rocky Mountain Bullhorn All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/21458/