May 5th is National Cartoonists Day, so it seems fitting, being a Moms’ blog and all, to discuss what our favorite cartoons are.
Seeing as I can only speak for the people in this house, I can only use our personal experiences to put a little cheer in your day.
Now we can go either animated or comic strip. I kind of have to go both because I don’t know if my kids know what an actual newspaper is.
One of my earliest memories of childhood is getting up early on a Saturday morning, racing to the kitchen to get my bowl of Cocoa Krispies, and then getting that, my pillow, and my blanket all situated on the living room floor just in time to watch The Smurfs. It was the start of the shows that lasted all Saturday morning long. It was glorious. I had the television all morning. Even if the shows were stupid, I still watched them because they were cartoons and they were for me! Kids today will never know how amazing that was. Sure they have cable and On Demand and YouTube and iPads and millions of other things, but in my opinion, none of that ever beats the glory of Saturday morning cartoon time.
I enjoyed my print comics as well. To this day I adore my Snoopy and Peanuts, but my loyalty always did and still lies with Garfield. I mean, who doesn’t love an overeating, oversleeping , overweight cat with huge amounts of sarcasm? On some level there, I feel like I can relate?
My husband is definitely a boy of the 80-s. I ask him about this blog, I’m getting the answer of Transformers and G.I. Joe! I browsed those here and there, but by that point on I had moved onto He-Man, She-Ra, and Thundercats. War guys and cars that turned into robots weren’t really my thing, but to each their own, and I knew a ton of little boys who were just like him. Should I also make a major confession here as well? I never liked Jem. (I know I know. Just send the hate mail to PMB. They know where to find me.)
I faded out of the cartoon scene for much of the 90s as I entered high school and then college, but then re-entered as I became a mom in the year 2000. The cartoon Rugrats saved my life as a new mom. Nothing seemed to calm my crying firstborn…until he heard the theme song of that cartoon. From then on, that show was on in our tiny little apartment as much as humanly possible. As the boy got older, he discovered Spongebob, as did the two children who followed him. Am I alone in hating that cartoon? I have officially become the mom who thinks these shows are stupid now and the kids yell at me that I have no taste. To this very day it is one of the few shows that will still keep all three of my kids happy.
While again, my kids wouldn’t know what a newspaper was if I waved it in front of their faces and called it a new iPad, I do have one child, possibly two, who like comics. Surprisingly, they enjoy what they consider “retro” comics. Super Mario Bros., Transformers, Pokemon, etc. The fact they feel any of this is old makes me want to cry.
On this National Cartoonists Day, it’s cool we can take a short minute as parents to thank those amazing artists for giving us even a moment of peace, as well as a lifetime of joy and memories.
