One morning I was scanning the newspaper casually when my eyes fell on a
Garfield comic strip. I found it very amusing indeed. I experienced a sudden
nostalgia about the cartoons of yester year. Back then cartoons belonged to the
time when “Cartoon Network” was the King of children’s television in India. I
remember growing up eating straight from the palm of great cartoon shows like Looney
Toons. We missed growing up on Sesame Street, the Muppets and Barney and
friends, unlike most American kids because Kermit channel was soon removed from
viewership. Every phase of my growing up years had a cartoon to suit it up
until the age of puberty. Ask any boy in college if he misses watching the Swat
cats or Johnny Quest and he’ll reply in the affirmative.
Gone are the days when the Flintstones could take a kid back to the
prehistoric times or The Jetsons transport him to somewhere in the future. What
happened to the weirdest family in cartoon history? The Adam’s family could
make your hair stand on end. Nobody remembers Top cat-the swaggering alley cat
that always wore a purple hat? What about Josie and the Pussy cats and how much
little girls loved to groove to their tunes? Probably the title for longest
surviving cat cartoon would undoubtedly go to Tom and Jerry (by MGM) the
present corrupted version of Tom and Jerry tales
is not even close to the original nor is the other version shown on Indian Television named "Chuha Billi Police chor". When was it the first time any of us had
an insight into a sailor’s life? It had to be after watching Popeye the sailor
man.
I could mention some more cartoons that need to be raised from the dead.
We live in a world that is constantly facing environmental threats today. Now a
cartoon like Captain Planet could really impact young minds to want to save the
planet!
The road runner show brought countless laughter to everyone in the
family. There are so many of us who miss Acme products. The days when we used
to come across Powerpuff girl merchandise in the markets seem so long ago
because all we can find anywhere now is Ben10 pouches and lunch boxes. Suddenly
there seems to have been an indigenization of Cartoon network. After they
changed their logo everything changed. There was an invasion of cartoons like
Tenali Raman, Chota Birbal, Vikram aur Betaal and the like. Parents felt this
move was good so that children could now learn about Indian mythology and
culture. But some of the episodes seemed as if they were mocking it. Another
factor that led to the decline of Cartoon network in India was the introduction
of several Japanese and Chinese cartoons. Lots of other cartoon channels today
show Ninja Hattori, Kemon achi, Doremon etc. One finds these shows on
Nickelodeon instead of old time favorites like, “As told by Ginger”, “Hey
Arnold”, “Wild Thorn berries” or “The Rugrats” anymore and this is
disappointing. Even shows like “Keenan and Kel”, “Drake and Josh” and “the
Amanda Show” came to an abrupt standstill, much to the dismay of poor fans.
How many of us haven’t forgotten what Pogo once used to be? When it first
came into being we had shows like “Round the twist” and this really cool
science program. You don’t need me to illustrate what’s become of pogo now do
you, what with the advent of Takeshi’s castle (laughs.)
Disney channel has also succumbed to this unnecessary change. It is no
longer what it used to be when it first came to India. No more craziness of
suite life of Zack and Cody, no more exhibition of Raven’s super confident self
in That’s so Raven and no more Phil of the Future or Lizzie McGuire which used
to rule the channel at one point. Then there was the double life living Hannah
Montana that had several episodes with endless repetition. This was later
joined by Wizards of Waverly place and suite life on deck which wasn’t much of
a hit. Everything has vanished in mid Disney air now. All we see when we turn
it on is lots and lots of Phineas and Ferb and believe me we are sure to get
bored of that too.
The question is why did all this happen? Someone should worry about what
the kids of this generation get to watch. It’s not fair that some of us got to
watch great cartoon while the others sufficed with below average ones. Besides
we learnt a lot from watching television that may come in handy at any time
anywhere. I believe that people have thus far underestimated the importance of
good children’s T.V. nobody knows what happened and nobody has bothered to find
out! All we want are quality cartoons that will make kid’s imaginations go
beyond this world that can show them the true potential and power of
imagination. Even if we have to resurrect them from the past two decades!
No comments:
Post a Comment