Prime Time

Prime Time

Goose 'em With A Flame Thrower

by Maxene Fabe

Remember cartoons? With real heroes? A real hero could sustain being crushed by a boulder, impaled on a tree trunk, fast-fried by a flame thrower, run over by a train, and that all-time cartoon buzz, goosed by a little dynamite. Whereupon he’d emerge in the next frame unscathed except for a bandaid affixed to his tail (all cartoon heroes have tails) and smiling. Oh yeah, and also his eyes’d spin round and round in a truly enviable trippy way.

Now I ask you. Is getting off on that year after year, Saturday morning after Saturday morning, harmful Friends, there are forces afoot, brigades of violent and hostile mothers and psychologists, the same forces who destroyed lovable horror comics in the fifties, who say “yes!” And they’ve pounded TV cartoons into a pulp, sapped their lifeblood, and left them educational, positive, and no longer a complete waste of time.

Have you watched cartoons on Saturday morning lately? Why they’re so frustratingly goody-goody and wholesome they just make you want to throw up your Cocoa-Puffs pr blow up the teevee with your Mattel bazooka.

The Hanna-Barbera golden age which brought us such truly brilliant cartoon heroes fifteen years ago as Yogi Bear and The Flintstones have lapsed into formulized drivel. Today, Yogi’s Gang (ABC, 8 a.m.) fight such archfiends as Mr. Bigot, Mr. Waste, and Mr. Dirt. While the rest of Hanna-Barbera energy goes into animated remakes of the dregs of nighttime TV: I Dream of Jeannie (CBS, 9 a.m.); The Partridge Family (CBS, 9:30); Gilligan’s Island (ABC, 9:30); Emergency Room (NBC, 9). Gone forever are Rocky and Bullwinkle, Mighty Mouse, Underdog, and those all-time primes of cartoon violence, Tom and Jerry.

This season’s new cartoons are really the pits. They include Wheelies, (NBC, 8:30 a.m.), a lovable Volkswagen who continually outsmarts a wholesome motorcycle gang; Devlin (ABC, 10 a.m.) — three lovable orphans who form a wholesome motorcycle stunt team. (Wholesome bikers are “in” this season.) These Are the Days (ABC, 12 noon) is an animated series meant to teach you about life on a wholesome all-American farm at the turn of the century. And then there’s the golden opportunity to learn your American history from Archie (CBS, 12 noon). That’s right — Archie. The only show this season with any promise is Hong Kong Phooey (ABC, 9 a.m.) — that is if you haven’t already had it with the Kung Fu craze yet.

Cartoons have been so bad since the mothers and psychologists of America got hold of them that nobody’s watching them except the mothers and the psychologists. Last season ratings fell as much as 33% in the Saturday 8-9 a.m. slot. The networks are deluding themselves into believing that the ratings are way down because of Daylight Saving Time. (“What kid’s going to get up to watchcartoons in the dark?” they explain.) Some, get this, blame the low ratings on the falling birth rate. But cross those militant mothers, never.

So they’re combating the trend by introducing unanimated adveriture: Dinosaurs and cave men are popular with kids,, right? Voila. Korg: 70,1)00 B.C. (ABC, 10:30). It’s a remake of the Flintstones only with real people, and it’s serious. And it’s deadly dull. Another dinosaur opera is Land of the Lost (NBC, 10 a.m.) — “stranded in time, a family fights to survive in a danger-filled world of prehistoric animals.” Or if you’re really hard up, you could watch Run, Joe, Run (NBC, 9:30 a.m.) — about an innocent and misunderstood German shepherd on the run, in this cross between Rin-Tin-Tin and The Fugitive.

Actually, if you promise not to tell, one of these unanimated shows turns me on like you wouldn’t believe, and that’s Sigmund and the Sea Monsters (NBC, 10:30). I mean imagine * looking under your bed or opening your closet and finding something kinky and gropey and slippery waiting for you that’d give your Mom a heart attack if she ever got wind of it and caught the two of you together. I gotta admit I’m very partial to Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.

But as for animated TV cartoons? Forget it. The old pow, sock, bam, biff is gone.

But don’t fret, folks. No need to go into mourning. Even though TV cartoons are dead, we still got real life cartoon heroes to groove on. I mean that rare breed of all-American egomaniac who doesn’t know the meaning of “The End.” Who takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Who won’t stay down for the count. Who iust when we think he’s goners for sure this time, pops up smiling and unscratched in the next frame. Yep, as long as we still got Evel Knievel and Richard Nixon, Muhammed Ali and Lou Reed, the cartoon hero is still alive to come down the old comeback trail again, still smiling that indomitable old shit-eating grin. Cartoons ain’t dead. Not by a long shot.