Crudely, Crudely Drawn

      It's one of those things I'll never get over, how much TV cartoons have changed over the years.    In my youth (Heaven forfend!) we were stuck with the crop of such miserable animated series as Scooby-Doo and Spider-Man-- and for the truly masochistic, Hercules and Rocket Robin Hood and the like.    (Those of us that remember Hercules are permanently scarred by the voice of the sexually-disturbing centaur Newton, trapsing along shouting "Herc! Herc!")    So it's strange when these embarrassingly bad shows find themselves back on the air in our much more sophisticated age.    One ends up cringing at every cheesy melodramatic gesture or kindergarten-level science or grossly-racist stereotype, unless of course, one is sufficiently stoned and/or drunk that one could just as easily find a wheat-thin sexy.    The worst offender, I think, was The Superfriends, and tonight (er, this morning) I was watching the series for the first time in ages.    Suffice it to say that there's a damned good reason the show is aired at 3am in my neck of the woods, an hour after last call: it's something else to forget the next morning.    Needless to say, watching a pair of episodes while sober is almost morbidly enlightening.    It makes phrases like "Jinkies!" and "Ruh-roh!" seem like lines of Stoppardian dialogue.

      The internet, however, being what it is-- the ultimate resource for all things irrelevant-- I was suprised to see that someone has actually bothered to put together a site of commentary on the show, most of it, mercifully, wicked rather than earnest.    (Note: link may be NSFW, because of banners.)    For those of you jonesing for some truly off-putting nostalgia that will make you wonder if you were ever as stupid as you probably were, this site-- and its many clips from the shows-- will make you want to crawl inside your skins and never, ever return.    And, yes, yes, yes, I am immeasurably ashamed that I used to watch the show almost religiously, as they say, when Toby was a pup.    But, damn, we've come a long way, baby.    Except, of course, for those that actually bother to put up websites about such shows. Or write red-faced blog entries about them. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear....

      POST-SCRIPT:    It has just occurred to me who Newton-- the main player's fawning, sycophantic sidekick-- reminds me of.    Put them side-by-side and see if you can see a difference:


You know what, I can't, either....