Social & Cultural Phenomena of...the Cartoon?

I had a teacher in high school who complained about buying his kids Yu-Gi-Oh Cards because they enjoyed watching the TV show and that he was the victim of some sort of strategic onslaught designed to undermine society. Are cartoons really part of a subversive plot by 'Big Brother' or just the newest incarnation of a continuously evolving social phenomenon?

I'm not going to attempt to discuss paleolithic cave drawings, but yes some people might trace that the origins of cartoons as we know them. I'll instead start with the growth of the Disney Company and Warner Brothers. In a nation that so firmly roots its heritage on patriotism, it does not take much to discern the intentions of this war-based sketch involving Donald Duck or this one of a less than elegant Bugs Bunny. No it did not help that Yosemite Sam was a Confederate soldier either. So I'm guessing the basis of cartoons was to be a (not so) subtle 'persuasive device' for America's youth. While also serving as a fairly decent advertising stump for emerging companies to sell their products to kids, like Winston Cigarettes.


So what was really at the base of cartoons, a government interested in raising nationalism or Joe Camel's forefathers hard at work?

I'm sure most people enjoyed the Flintstones, but can you actually find anyone that saw the original airs of it today? I know I grew up watching it on syndication, and without the Winston Cigarette ads. It can be argued that cartoons needed to decline for social reasons. there was war at hand! Vietnam took a front seat and marketers needed to find a new venue from which shout their production cries.

Fortunately war ended, although GI Joe apparently will never age.

Cartoons eventually were relegated to Saturday mornings and a mass of quantity arguably began to override quality. I won't delve into psychological attention spans and that sort, for it on its own is worth great consideration. But think of this, a BRIEF list of Looney Toons easily eclipses 50 characters. The idea of absolutely manufacturing brief ~8 minutes sketches is essentially geared towards making a quick impact, while the multitude of these segments sets a decently consistent foundation. The idea of a single 3 to 4-group core maintaining the attention of a child for 30 minutes in the 1980's was preposterous. Unless you rented the VHS.

At some point, I can't personally remember when, sketches began to decline. I'm not giving a straightforward reason, just conjecture, but I'm guessing marketing and the FCC had a hand. TV programs used to be 25-26 minutes. A decreased program runtime to 21-22 minutes allowed more time for ad placement and also made it plausible to stretch the limits of young attention spans 2 more minutes without risking the loss of cohesive plots. How do you stretch those extra seconds? Cliffhangers...no not Sylvester Stallone.

Sure Cliffhanging a kid could have dire consequences, but none that couldn't be alleviated with newer products and more importantly the increased marketability and novelty of main characters. Why would you want to just watch Ash, Pikachu, & company conquer a new foe when you could do it for 'real'? Branding apparently just went HGH on us all and achieved a new stratosphere of ability. Interaction and programming blocks dedicated specifically to certain age demographics began to blur the line of between watching TV and 'play-time'.

Which brings about an even more alarming idea: when was the last time you heard a small child engaging in completely imaginary behavior and not something based on a cartoon, TV program, movie, etc? Are we living in an evolving culture that now literally fails to think 'outside the box'?

My point as always is such: THINK ABOUT IT!

Water – It Sounds Funny, doesn’t it?

The first thing I pick up when I’m back home is the way people talk. From the variations I’ve heard there’s – mainly on the east coast – three different annunciations stick in my mind.

a) ‘wauter’: try saying it by over-expressing the ‘au’, similar to the way you’d say ‘caution’
b) ‘waater’: now try and say if as if you’re crying
c) ‘warter’: gotta love my friends from Philadelphia, always good for two things: the Eagles choke and misplaced letter ‘R’

Moving away from digression, comedian Lewis Black makes quite a valid point during his special ‘Red, White, & Screwed.’

The point being that water, the most basic of all human needs, can still be subject to government and economic scrutiny. In summation, American citizens have moved away from adhering to normal tap water and instead have bought into the open market approach of purchasing bottled water products, which incidentally are bottled by Pepsi and Coca-Cola.

So here’s a nice dilemma to mull over:

Scenario A: tax dollars at work subsidize the availability of water to households, but in this monopoly consumption cannot be consistently controlled and as a result of brand marketing consumers have begun to make add bottled water as an expense to their weekly/monthly consumption bundles (damn, intermediate Micro-Econ at its best).

Scenario B: the growing market capacity of private bottling companies is in fact a step away from closed market Communism. I’m not condemning just overemphasizing, free-market capitalism is a fun thing to think over. At the outset, provision of basic utilities by fledgling local governments was necessary in order to enhance population growth. The lack of a transparent taxation allocation essentially does not allow the population to freely understand the allocation for water-utility. Private sector growth, the newer divisions of our friends at Pepsi and Coca-Cola, is just a response of the population to the perception of an un-attentive and disinterested ‘Big Brother’ hierarchy.

Scenario C: General Jack D. Ripper was right and the fluoridation of water is “the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face…” (from Dr. Strangelove – the premise is that the addition of fluoride to water utilities nationwide was a Communist scheme due to the proximity of legislation and the end of overt anti-Communist/Russian policy by the US). If you haven’t watched Dr. Strangelove, it’s actually pretty good; you just have to keep a mind towards the Cold War and contextual clues.

I won’t even begin to pretend to leave the issue in such basic or convoluted form. Einstein did a lot of day-dreaming, but some semblance of thinking is better than not thinking. Think about it!

No excuse me while I partake in my favorite Aqua Colbert…

NJ Economics - An Introduction I Guess?

I live in Northern New Jersey and it’s a heck of a place to live. People from New Jersey are often ridiculed for perceived negative attitudes, mannerisms, etc.

Fact: Bergen County (the county where I currently reside) is home to just about 1 million people.

Fact: Slightly more than 750,000 above the age of 18.

Fact: Median income is just under $70,000 a year.

Fact: Median is middle.

Fact: There’s more room for expansion of digits above $70,000 than there is below.

Fact: There are about 500,000 jobs in Bergen County.

Fact: Bergen County consists of 250 square miles

Problem: What do you do when 750,000 people are vying for jobs allocated for 500,000 people?

Let’s say that an average workday runs from 8am to 5pm. So a person earning 70 grand a year would earn somewhere in the vicinity of $25 per hour they could work. Cost of living can be estimated conservatively at $40,000 per year per individual. Let that sink in for a second. Per individual.

Societal factors – keeping up with the Jones’s. How often do you think an individual competing for a job will allow competition to delve into the societal realm? Fairly good bet – a significant amount. Thank you MasterCard for extending me an expanding credit line that I only need to pay $10 a month for!

People outside of New Jersey tend to think those from ‘Joisey’ are rude, obnoxious, and overly competitive. Think about it this way: a Bergen county resident competes against at least one other person for a job in the population (1.5 to be exact) to earn a wage that is sometimes insufficient for the means which they seek to live by. The idea would be to work as many hours in order to attain a higher wage or just send your best regards to MasterCard every month! Not only that, but each resident of Bergen County possesses less than one square foot of his/her own in the entire county.

If I wanted to earn wages someone else was not only earning but was also encroaching on the precious few inches I had, I’d be pretty good and pissed off too!