The world we're living in has relentlessly failed to yield any of the things we feel we were promised, like hover cars, hover skate boards, and other things that hover. So we have to wonder what fooled us into having these false hopes.
We need to lay the blame squarely where it belongs: children's programming. And really, it was our horrible childhoods that led us to this position.
Here's five of the worst offenders in making us evil.
The Smurfs
Whats cuter than a mouse and the Blue Man Group put together? Why, extremely small little blue people who live in mushrooms and partake in a communist-like society, of course!
The Smurfs spent most of their time thwarting Gargamel, who for some reason deduced that tiny blue people who live in mushrooms have got to be tasty as all get out. (Editor's note: They are.)
How they fucked us up
It's no big surprise that a show with the premise that somebody is constantly trying to eat the main characters might give children nightmares. All the smurfs ever wanted to do was live in their little utopian-esque society and be left alone, but things always turned to shit when "the man" showed up.
Which makes us wonder if perhaps our fear of big government might stem from the fact that we fear people who try to constantly mess with us or eat us.
Then there is the fact that, apparently, there is only one female smurf to every 30 males. Yes...yes, I know...before you start sending in hate emails about how horribly inaccurate this is, and that Smurfette was actually created by Gargamel, I ask you this...exactly how were they reproducing BEFORE the lone chick showed up? It doesn't take Brainy smurf to figure this shit out.
Papa Smurf was cloning them. Which might explain our penchant for that very practice.
Lasting effects
Well, again we get back to the whole "fear of the man" deal. Add in the fact that we actually look at Papa Smurf as the closest thing to a philosopher and guru that our generation has had and it's pretty obvious why we've become a generation of big business hating, mushroom loving freaks.
Looney Tunes
Remember Saturday mornings, sitting in your underoos in front of the TV, watching Wile E. Coyote Chase the Road Runner? Oh, how we would laugh every time one of the coyote's plans backfired and he ended up falling off a cliff into some sort of accordion-related paralysis. Or when Sylvester the cat would build a furniture mound to get to Tweety's cage, only to find the little lisping canary at the bottom of the mound ready to knock the whole works over. Oh, there was nothing quite as amusing as this to take our minds off the fact that our Cap'n Crunch was ripping the insides of our little mouths to shreds with every bite!
How they fucked us up
Reach for the stars, kids! But ya know. Not too high. Because there is always someone much smarter than you who will gladly take that opportunity right away from you. No matter how hungry you are for that bird, sometimes it's a safe bet just to take that money you were planning on buying the ACME rocket propelled kill-o-matic with, and spending it on a couple of boxes of mac and cheese.
And again, here we see another example of big business giving us the screw. How often did we see something that ACME had produced simply not work? Or perhaps sometimes it worked really well, but left out the one extremely important safety implement that would have saved the day. Rocket powered bicycle? How about some fucking brakes there, champ?
Lasting effects
The fact that it seems all the people in power were probably degenerates that never watched Saturday morning cartoons, and possibly spent their youth watching westerns while their daddy's plotted ways to overthrow the country through manipulating big oil probably says a lot about us. We're afraid of getting smacked down when we try to reach for that really important position of authority, and thus, spend quite a larger chunk of our time reading humor sites than creating national policy.
Plus we know that big business will assuredly screw us. Watch paid programming enough, and you will see half a dozen products at any given time that will kill us in ways way more efficiently than we could think of ourselves. Your normal household knives not sharp enough to cut a metal rod? Buy yourself some Ginsu knives! Guaranteed to take out an artery much more effectively than a normal knife when your wife realizes that you're never going to be any more than a fast food manager at McDonald's and decides to off you! Now there's progress for you!
Scooby Doo
No list of this nature would be complete without the man (or dog) himself...the Scoobmeister. When our little pre-adolescent minds got a hold of this, we were simply transfixed. Admit it. You were always waiting for the ghost or monster that turned out to be real, weren't you? And there was a feeling of bitter disappointment at the end of every episode, when after the ghost of the week was revealed to be old man Withers in a costume, that:
A) You had been duped once again, and
B) No matter how hard you tried, you would NEVER look that cool for Halloween.
How they fucked us up
There are a couple of subtle messages here, kids. First of all, trust no one. Everybody from the sheriff to the local thugs has got an agenda. And when the chips are down, and everything is going to utter shit, that's when your friends are going to send your happy ass into the haunted house with a talking dog to investigate.
Which brings us to the secondary message: That you can overcome anything as long as you have the proper stimulating motivation. Lets face it, folks. It's never been a secret that those Scooby snacks had to be a helluva lot more than just dog food. Anything that's gonna mellow you out sufficiently to go face a homicidal miner 49er in an old abandoned mine shaft better have more than a slight bacon taste going for it. We're talking a straight up dose of zannies mixed with some killer weed and morphine just to keep you straight. And if your only backup if the shit does hit the fan is a dog that's just as drugged as you are is two chicks and some dude in an ascot, you're definitely gonna need something to keep your mellow on.
Lasting effects
Anybody else notice that in the last few decades the divorce rate has soared, along with the usage of multiple drugs? This little tidbit could be due to the fact that when we're in relationships now. We know it's only a matter of time before our significant other rips off their mask to reveal the horrible fucking demonic bitch that, in our heart of hearts, we were sure was there all along. And this isn't the half of it. The levels of trust for our generation has deteriorated significantly since the day of the Scoob. Quick question: anybody here picked up any hitch hikers lately? No? Thats because we know that at some point after we pick them up, out comes the razor and it's goodnight Seattle.
Then comes the drug problem. As Scooby showed us all too often, if you want to get through a difficult time, you gotta get your synthetic courage on. And hell, lets face it. Life is a scary old mine shaft, and there's a shitload of insane miner 49ers that are just waiting for the chance to punch our ticket. So why wait? There's no time like the present for getting completely smashed! After all, WWSD (What would Scooby Do)?
G.I. Joe
No afternoon could be complete without coming home from school, and tuning into the adventures of the "Real American Hero" and seeing what hijinx Cobra Commander was kicking up this week. What could be cooler than a cartoon about a military organization that was consistently at odds with a terrorist organization that was hellbent on world domination?
And with the coolest in state of the art weaponry, and some of the most badass soldiers this side of Sylvester "I'll just keep spinning out sequels until somebody flips me out of my wheelchair and beats me with it" Stallone, it's little wonder our impressionable little minds grew somewhat addicted to this show. Every week, there was a new plot that would somehow allow Cobra commander to take over the world or bring the economy to its knees. Sure, most of his plans were half baked and were put down rather quickly by the Joe team, but hell, at least he tried, right?
How they fucked us up
Oh, wow. We're not even sure where to start. To begin with, remember all those cool vehicles and weapons we mentioned earlier? Well, apparently, they were completely worthless. As highly trained as these Joes were, they just could not seem to ever actually hit anything aside from a vehicle or an exploding barrel of some sort. And apparently these little laser guns of theirs were also programmed not to actually hit said vehicle until the occupant had bailed out. Wow! Those are pretty smart weapons! And to think, if those Cobra guys had been just a little smarter than that and just stayed in the Dual-tread Death Bringer Mobile, it may have never gotten blown up! Man those Cobras are stupid!
But, well, maybe we were a little dumb too. Because we never questioned why Cobra commander apparently lived in the United States, had millions of dollars in equipment and his own military at his disposal, and yet he was harder to find than Osama Bin Laden even though everybody in his terrorist organization wore prominent logos. Not only that, but whenever the shit hit the fan and double C had to run for his life. nobody ever followed him! Really, this is just poor planning, if you ask us. If you just spent a good deal of your time chasing down Cobra Commander because he had found a way to destroy the worlds economy, and he escapes from his hideout in a jetpack, wouldn't you follow that motherfucker? I mean hell, at least get an idea which direction he's headed in. Get an Apache or something to trail him! Something!
But no. As you see in the image to the left, it looks as if Duke is about to scream something along the lines of "NOOOOOOOOOO" upon Cobra Commander's latest escape. But don't be so quick with the comforting there, Scarlett. He's just going to quip a joke, and the rest of you are going to stand around laughing about it as Cobra Commander jets off into the sunset more pissed off than ever.
Ladies and gentlemen, we think we've just put our finger on why we've yet to capture Osama Bin Laden.
Lasting effects
Okay, let's play a little game here for a moment. Pretend you are a 9 year old boy, and you and your best friend are in the bathroom, playing with the stuff under the sink. Suddenly, out of nowhere a large black man in fatigues appears at your bathroom window (which is conspicuously open for some reason) and begins to lecture you on playing with the stuff under the sink. Sure, the guy is Road Block from G.I. Joe, but that doesn't change the fact that the government is clearly watching everything you do.
Yes, it's true. Big brother is now officially watching you! How do we know? Because at the end of every single episode of the show, it would show kids doing everything from getting into fights after school to playing with their father's handgun in the closet, and mysteriously a Joe team member would show up and read them the riot act for being so fucking stupid.
Of course the kids would do the obligatory "Gee, thanks Road Block!" Which is kid for "Please get the hell out of here before mom comes home and finds a stranger in the bathroom with her kids!" to which Road Block would reply, "And KNOWING is half the battle!"
Which, ironically, became Bush's battle cry when he began legalizing phone tapping and what not for homeland security usage.
So, I think I'm seeing a pattern here. The government keeps blowing money on military equipment that is largely as ineffective as it's military strategy, knows every single thing Jim Bob citizen does, and is fighting an enemy that we can't find.
Fuck, that's eerie.
Care Bears
Okay, quite frankly, we're not going to spend a lot of time on this one. This may have been something your little sister watched. Or, possibly it was forced upon you as some form of torture. In either case, lets make this quick.
How they fucked us up
Ok...so. Cute.
Reality.
Adorable.
....I just crapped myself.
Lasting effects
The lasting impression that for some reason, bears are cuddly little critters. But we guarantee you, that if you dyed a bear hot pink and stapled a heart to it's chest, that fucker is still going to eat you. Slowly. Beginning with your testicles.
Think you can write for WUITS? Then submit your best articles to revrogue@the-iss.com! We're always looking for new talent, though frankly, this is a nonpaying gig...so basically, it's for the prestige of being an interweb published writer! Hey, whats better than being web-famous?
-Rev
