Cartoon World

I haven't watched cartoons in a very long time, though my husband still does on Sunday mornings. He says it takes him to another world where (as one character says in The Twilight Zone movie) "anything can happen."

My son used to love watching cartoons on weekend mornings, and though I remember getting up with him I don't remember the cartoons themselves. As he got older we watched a few together--The Simpsons, Family Guy and the PBS cartoons like The Magic School Bus.

Otherwise, beyond my own childhood, I was never really a cartoon person. 

I've heard a lot about BoJack Horseman and want to watch that one day, but haven't got around to it. One of my favorite movies for a long time was Roger Rabbit--though I don't know how to categorize that, exactly. I loved The Corpse Bride too.

While the names of cartoons have changed, I think the ones aimed at kids pretty much follow the same pattern. Like my husband says, anything can happen. A set of dishes can begin to sing; dinosaurs and astronauts can live in the same spaceship; a thin, small man can eat a can of spinach and become the strongest man in the world, and mice can outsmart cats every time. And when Alice falls down the rabbit hole and has a thousand surreal adventures, we know somehow, some way, she will come back to her life and family.

Mostly, the good guys win in cartoons, which is another reason I think we like them. With our grownup lives so precarious and unreliable, I think we are looking for both the stability and magic cartoons offer. I probably get some of that in the horror movies I watch (almost weekly). My husband doesn't understand how I can watch some of them--and I tend to feel that way about his cartoons. But someone's figured out how to cater to both our needs--and the needs of most of us--through these very particular kinds of storytelling.

Do you or your kids have a favorite cartoon? Do you get up with them to watch on weekend mornings? Do you disagree over what to watch and if so, who wins? Are there cartoons you won't let your kids watch, and if so, why? (I didn't like the Power Rangers and as I remember, we didn't watch that one).

Whatever you think of cartoons, I hope you find the ones you like best--and most of all, once you find them, that you share them with your kids. For more on cartoons, try these articles:

What Cartoons Can Teach Our Kids

Best Cartoons for Kids to Watch Now (2020)

9 Best Educational Cartoons for Toddlers

Child watching cartoons photo: Tazrian Khan