Saturday Morning Cartoons - Free Babysitting for Exhausted Parents - The 80's #11
More peace treaty than entertainment, Saturday morning cartoons quietly negotiated a truce between parents who needed sleep and children who woke at dawn like feral animals. Quietly... as long as the TV was on another floor of the house. No alarms were needed. As kids, we naturally got up at dawn, driven by the knowledge that missing the opening theme music to our favorite cartoon might be the death of joy itself. Pajamas were mandatory. Except for my brother, who took their confining role as a personal afront to his freedom. Necessary for the full experience, too, was a bowl of cereal large enough to qualify as an Olympic event. Milk was poured haphazardly. "Nutritional value" was heresy. The television set became a shrine. We parked our butts inches from the screen, soaking in animation and advertisement with equal devotion. Cartoons and commercials taught us valuable lessons: - Friendship is worth fighting soldiers for - Teamwork is how you get rid of sadness - There was...