Curious George was Good...

But, here's the problem. There aren't many shows for kids that I would call, entertaining. Okay, don't get me wrong; I enjoy a good cartoon, same as the next man. But, come on. Is it, really, that difficult to make good cartoons, the likes of G.I. Joe and Ducktales?

On that subject, remember Ducktales? That was awesome. In fact, I remember they used to show reruns on The Disney Channel late at night; I used to flip back and forth between Jay Leno and Ducktales as often as possible. Oh, I get it. You don't like Ducktales? Well, I don't care. The truth is that Ducktales was the best show ever for teaching kids about history. It used to address all kinds of historical events...except the ducks could talk.

Anyways, back on topic. But, I was heartened recently when I turned on HBO and saw Curious George. It was everything a cartoon should be; it was cute and touching, while also dealing with deep issues of discrimination. After all, I am now aware of the difficulty of monkeys that live in the city and will, certainly, do my best to be more sensitive to them.

So, Curious George was great. And, for a brief time, my faith in modern cartoons began to be restored. That is, until I saw Happy Feet over the weekend, again on HBO. Now, I should disclose that I only made it through about 45 minutes of the film before I fell asleep. That alone should be proof, enough, that it was a bad movie; usually it's my wife that falls asleep during movies and I'm the one who makes it through. She, in fact, watched the entire thing, probably out of, what I must assume to be, sheer curiosity.

Indeed, based on what I saw of the movie, it was terribly boring and didn't make much sense. First, I didn't realize penguins are supposed to sing; I guess I thought they had better things to do like stay alive in the freezing cold. And, then there's this penguin that dances. Okay, that's cute and all, but come on. It makes no sense. What parent would not be happy to have a tap dancing penguin? I know I'd be excited if my child danced like Gregory Hines. Anyways, maybe it ended better than it started, but I can't imagine how.

The point of all this is to say that, I don't know what I'm going to do on the cartoon front. I just can't get excited about shows like the turtle show or Dora the Explorer. I mean, what happened to Looney Tunes even? I feel like everything I knew and loved is gone. Still, the truth is that I must start getting used to it, because I'm sure my child will want to watch Dora, and I'm going to have a tough time saying "No." Maybe I should get a G.I. Joe DVD and we can watch it together.