I can see the older cartoons, like Loony Toons. They were funny in a slapstick sort of way, although they often had a lot of clever inside jokes written for adults. Even today, grownups enjoy watching the antics of Bugs and Elmer, Daffy and Porky, and the running existential soap opera of the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. This was great comedy, and technically, superb animation. Not just kids, but everybody found them irresistible.

But modern short subject animation is crude, unsophisticated and to put it frankly, cheap and mass-produced (usually outsourced to third world countries). And the story lines are, well, for lack of a better term, childish. Not only moronic and unfunny, but so politically correct that I’m surprised even pre-schoolers don’t dismiss it as propaganda and brainwashing. The National Film Board of Canada is particularly bad about grinding out this stuff for the Public TV market.

There’s plenty of good cartoons still around, some of the old Hanna-Barbera TV sitcoms like the Flintstones and Jetsons were mild satire that was amusing to grown-ups, but this material
(like the Simpsons) is clearly aimed at adults. Some of the cheaper Simpsons imitators are clearly not fit for kids, I find many offensive–violent and cruel, and still boring.

But kids seem to find the animated figures irresistible. There’s something about that two-dimensional colorful reality that captures and mesmerizes them. What is it about this form of theatre that captivates children so? And why can’t educators and psychologists harness that to provide genuine education for kids? The same can be said for its puppetry cousins, like Sesame Street and the Muppets.
Hell, who can’t help but falling in love with Miss Piggy. And Sesame Street must be doing something right because Conservatives seem to find it intolerable.

I use to love cartoons when I was a kid, although in those days they were mostly run as short subjects before the feature film (right after the newsreel). I never mistook them for reality, I knew they were drawn by artists, but I still got into the stories. I still do. Some of those characters (like Daffy Duck) were absolutely brilliant creations. But modern cartoons are insipid and lifeless, with only a few exceptions.
Feature film-length cartoons are made for adult audiences, or are targeted at families and have something to appeal to all ages. Some are high art, others are trash, just like any other genre.

But the short TV cartoons specifically aimed at children are truly dreadful. Its no wonder kids today are so screwed up.