Cartoons have certainly come a long way since its birth in 1908 by French filmmaker Emile Cohl. Content may have changed but the popularity and audience sure has not. Between the late 1990s and early 2000s is when I enjoyed cartoons the most. My parents and I both believe that cartoons then were pure entertainment and sometimes educational. Scooby- Doo, Where Are You?, Doug, School House Rock, and Rugrats were my all time favorites to watch. When recently watching my younger cousins I had the chance to watch, well try to, the cartoon series that they enjoy. Avatar: The Last Air Bender, Ben 10: Alien Force, and Total Drama Island were their top picks. Instantly I noticed a major difference between my generation of cartoons and theirs, it is far more advanced and mature. Not just the technology but the content and story lines. This condition of advancement and maturity cannot be label as a bad or good for the simple fact it would place judgment for all cartoons. Each cartoon cannot be placed in the same category, not even if they do show on the same network.
Cartoon series like Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? were made for you as a child to be entertained while using your brain as you interacted with the “gang” to solve ghost mysteries. None of the shows that my younger cousins watch come close to this scenario. In fact I do not believe that they ever watched a Scooby-Doo episode. This example also goes for School House Rock, which I believe to be one of the best cartoon series while educating you at the same time. Shows like those mentioned were just right for the young growing mind. I asked my cousins what did they get from the cartoons; their answers were “I don’t know”. That is not what I would answer if I were asked that same question years ago. If you think about it young children today do get something out of the cartoons they watch. Studies and different incidents have shown that most children under the age of twelve pick up many bad habits from cartoons watched on television. When a survey was asked Does cartoons influence children behavior? a mother response was:
Heck yeah they do... my sons fav was cartoon network which had Ed edd and eddy on it. Well this yr when my 5 yr old started school he was getting into a lot of trouble when I asked him where he learned some of the stuff guess what the answer was ed eddy and eddy. So now there is no cartoon network in my house-Angela H
These cartoons have an every day life effect on children. I wonder why I was asked to keep a close eye on the programs my younger cousins watched.
Cartoon Network is more popular to children in the age group of 6-11 than Nickelodeon. From personal experience again I found that out to be true with my younger cousins and their friends. I do not approve of this due to the fact of the time slots Cartoon Network has. It was not until September 2, 2001 that this particular network decided to premier their adult- oriented sister network, Adult Swim. Unlike Nickelodeon’s, Nick at Nite, adult program blocking, Adult Swim plays a wide variety of adult anime series that contain violence, sexual content, profanity, anti-religion, and other contents that you would not want a child to be exposed to. One minute before this program block is to starts an one minute “bumper” is used to simply tell children to go to bed you have to be 18 or older or parental advisory to see the following series that show between 10:00PM-6:00AM. Although children should be sleep around this time this method seems stupid to me. My first instinct is why put adult shows like Family Guy on a television station that was created for children in the first place then what if they are out of school and is allowed to stay up all night now they cannot watch cartoons. Just is neither fair nor right.
From personal experience again I have found that the program “bumper” is no help. You hear about situations like this on the news every so often when a child is caught reacting or repeating what they have heard on a show like Family Guy or South Park. My thoughts after watching the few cartoons that are now on television for children that you cannot blame a child fully for wanting to watch adult animated shows, for one animation was created for a child’s mind. Children like to be exposed to things that are related or like them. Back when I was a child the Rugrats was who thought had the same characteristics as us, now its Ben 10 and baby Stewie(unfortunately) who catches the new generations attention.
WORK CITED
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060914151658AAYCau7
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartoon_Network_(United_States)#Programming
http://www.historyofbranding.com/cartoonnetwork.html
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