That quote at 2:47 is heartbreaking.

"It's been happening everywhere. I felt, I've always felt like eventually it was going to happen here too."

This deserves more attention. (But it shouldn't be in the 'kids' channel. That's for Saturday morning cartoons and things for children to watch. No child should have to watch---or endure---anything like this.)

Truly a saturday morning cartoons moment!

Love this score...

And I'd love to start a Saturday Morning Cartoon channel...How do I ?

Thunder..... ThunderCats...

fake shock sound effect kinda ruined it for me; this is because I watched too many Saturday morning cartoons and now many years later that sound effect ruins the suspension of belief even if it's genuinely happening.

nostalgia?
yeah....i got that.
http://videosift.com/video/saturday-morning-tv-memories-1965-1976

have to be a tad long in the greys to feel the POWAH of saturday morning cartoons.

Interesting how a film based on a 80's saturday morning cartoon "may contain content inappropriate for children."

Such a pitch perfect rendition of Saturday morning cartoons of yore

Who puts a marriage proposal in a Saturday morning cartoon?

Well, this should play well with the Saturday morning cartoon demographic.

>> ^ponceleon:

Absolutely nerdy question just came up in my mind:
So at the end of Superman II, Kevin smith says that superman flies out into space to find other Kryptonians... shouldn't this not work? I mean, isn't the power of the Kryptonians based on the fact that our yellow sun does some mumbo jumbo to them?
I mean, once he gets far away from the solar system, wouldn't he lose his superpowers and just die out in space somewhere?


All of my knowledge of American Mythology comes from Saturday morning cartoons, but Superman always used a the Supermobile whenever they went to other star systems with non-yellow suns.

I even had that die cast toy when I was a kid.

It's funny, you can literally recite the definition of a straw man attack, but then misuse it in the next sentence.

What I said was:

The Texas school board is currently trying to get history textbooks to do for the Great Depression and the New Deal what they've done for evolution. I say that's about a thousand times worse than your hint of a whiff of ideology you don't like in a Saturday morning cartoon.

But, apparently the cartoon struck a deeper chord with you because it's got a slight whiff of something you think is evil, when the blatant historical revisionism towards your view doesn't warrant comment.

I'm making my own argument there -- mostly I'm accusing you of having a double standard. Something that seems like a pro-liberal manipulation, you scream. Something that's blatant conservative manipulation, well, you probably hadn't even heard about it. I was inviting you to condemn what they're doing, and apparently you couldn't muster even a "I don't like what they're doing, either".

But in the spirit of fairness, I'll confess the above was an ad hominem argument, if a fairly gentle one that you could have easily deflated by conceding my point.

This particular case was a blog entry made by someone who claims to have first hand knowledge of being influenced by these groups, and collectivists find that threatening, so the only form of attack they have is to dip into their shameless partisan bag of tricks and pull out the "evidence" card for something this man obviously just remarked about as an aside in a blog about a Saturday morning cartoon he used to write for.

I admit I can be quite the conceited jerk at times, especially when I'm gloating a little bit, but blankfist, sweetie, asking for evidence isn't a dirty partisan trick.

In part, you're making my argument for me here by minimizing what it was you presented. My point is that you're trumpeting it like it's a big revelation of a sinister plot -- you even suggested that the only reason "teamwork" might sound good is because of indoctrination by cartoons -- when it sure sounded to me like Evanier's main point was "I just think that 'pro-social' message was bogus and ill-conceived", not "your children are being secretly brainwashed by mysterious parties to further their secret agenda".

You yourself said in your first comment that it sounded "a bit conspiratorial", and then recounted your belief that it's not just children's cartoons, but independent films.

I think my skepticism is perfectly healthy.

@NetRunner. I see what you did there, you big silly sophist. I was talking about the Sift Talk post itself not being speculation, but yes my personal opinion is that I believe pro-social messages are bad, and I believe this writer is telling the truth because I don't think you've offered any proof to the contrary. I'm personally not trying to convince you that he's genuine and not lying to prove a point, because that is speculation and I can't prove that.

Debating a mob of collectivists in a single post makes it difficult to keep the arguments straight. But, then again, collectivists aren't known for their temperance.

Point of information. A straw man argument is, as implied by its title, attacking a substituted position in place of the opponent's original position. That's what your silly New Deal and Texas school board analogy was - a straw man. In fact, that's mainly how you personally like to debate: by building straw men to set afire. I feel it's important to point out this character flaw when debating others, because I truly feel you can be above that.

This particular case was a blog entry made by someone who claims to have first hand knowledge of being influenced by these groups, and collectivists find that threatening, so the only form of attack they have is to dip into their shameless partisan bag of tricks and pull out the "evidence" card for something this man obviously just remarked about as an aside in a blog about a Saturday morning cartoon he used to write for.

But, no, you're right, I should launch a massive investigation to prove a Saturday morning cartoon writer isn't being a manipulative liar on a non-political blog he uses to write his personal musings. Yes, that will certainly require some hard-nosed sleuthing to ensure no stone goes unturned while I... um... google it? Here, does this sound like a man with a political agenda: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Evanier

>> ^blankfist:
The guy who is making the claim about the cartoon is actually the writer of the cartoon. He claims (with undeniable first hand knowledge being that he's the writer of the cartoon) that he was forced by special interests groups to write pro-social messages where the group is always right and the complainer was wrong.

Right, your evidence is one person's say so.

If he had said something like "special interest groups told me that they want to curtail individual thought", then we'd at least be able to say he was a witness of some unknown credibility. But he didn't say that, he just made an accusation.

Now, if the article you were linking was written by someone who was part of the supposed special interest group(s), and had a stack of internal memos about a secret plot to destroy independent thought, then you might have a pretty good case.

It's not that I think the guy isn't who he says he is, and it's not even that I necessarily think he's being intentionally dishonest, it's that he's speculating, and speculation isn't the same as proof.

The videos might be evidence of the existence of some scenes that might be interpreted as being "pro-social" in the cartoon this guy wrote for, but that's evidence that he did in fact put those messages in the cartoon, but not evidence that parental groups put him under some sort of duress to do it, and certainly not evidence that the parental groups wanted to indoctrinate children to never use their own judgment.

For that matter, the whole moral of this guy's story is that he too made the decision to bow to powers greater than him, rather than stand up for what he thought was right. If we needled him about why he didn't quit in protest, he probably would've talked about the damage to his career and livelihood, and that ultimately he didn't care that much about the effect his actions were having on kids relative to his own self-interest.

He's whining about it now, and trying to blame other people for what he himself did, and say "I couldn't stand up to the group, I mean they might have asked me politely to leave!" But that just seems like he's still trying to process the guilt, and wishes he could blame some scapegoat rather than face the (alleged) consequences of his actions.

You are weird.

(take it to the bank)



In reply to this comment by rottenseed:
Is it weird that I always identified with the "dissenter"? I thought Eric was funny in these clips. My favorite Ninja Turtle was Raphael and I thought Shredder was awesome.

Dear Bankfist,

You're high or you're drunk.

Blankie, gangs existed long before Saturday morning cartoons.

You never walked in "the hood" did you.

If you did you would know that it had nothing to do with cartoons.

Would you kindly turn the laser beam of your intellect on more worthy causes?