Apparently, I Had A Bad Childhood

Like every kid in my generation, I grew up on Warner Brothers' Looney Tunes cartoons. I always thought they were hilarious. I never once felt like maybe my mind was being warped.

As I got older, I stopped watching Looney Tunes in pursuit of more adult things, like porn. In fact, the Looney Tunes of the '40s and 50s that I grew up on just kinda faded out of existence altogether; they just weren't on TV anymore (for reasons that will become obvious). Oh sure, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck are still around, but those old cartoons just kinda went away.

Recently, The Girl has gotten on a cartoon kick, buying up all the old Disney movies she loved as a kid. This got me jonesing for those old Looney Tunes cartoons. Turns out, they are still available, as Warner Bros. has has made them into boxset called The Looney Tunes Golden Collection. While we were perusing the Disney movie selection at Sam's Club one day, I saw they had some of the Looney Tunes boxsets (and at half price, no less). So, I picked up the first two sets. And, upon watching them again after a 20-year absence, I see now that these cartoons weren't intended for children at all.

Other than the fact that they're animated, there is nothing in the Looney Tunes that would appeal to children at all. Most of the jokes will go over childrens' heads. Some of the references, which really makes no sense 60 years later, would be completely lost on children. I mean, what kid knows who Humphrey Bogart is? And this is just the parts that would appeal to kids. These cartoons are extremely violent, mean-spirited, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and racist. Mind you, that analysis reads into a lot of things, but it shows that our views on a lot of things have changed in the past 60 years, as most animation studios wouldn't be caught dead putting anything like that in the cartoons of today.

It's my assumption that these cartoons weren't meant for children at all. As I mentioned before, there's no appeal for children. Everything in them, from the humor to the context, is geared towards adults. I think the only reason that they appealed to my peer group was that they were cartoons and kids will watch anything that's animated (and it was pretty funny to see Daffy Duck have a shotgun go off in his face). And I don't think they warped us because all cartoons back then were like that. Anything that would be considered inappropriate for children nowadays was in all those cartoons back in the day. If our kids were to watch these after growing up on Teletubbies and Dora the Explorer, they might have some serious questions after watching these (just like they might after watching old Sesame Streets, apparently).

But, all that being said, I still enjoy the old Looney Tunes. I think they're even better now that I actually understand the jokes and can appreciate the subtlety of the humor. I guess it turns out that things do get better with age.