When I was a child most Saturday morning cartoons were talking dogs or tricky woodpeckers. The humans that actually appeared in cartoons were overly simplified caricature drawings, Fred Flinstone, George Jetson, and the like. Later on there were G.I. Joes and Ninja turtles but for the most part cartoon depictions of the human body were still.....welll....cartoony.

Not so today.

Today there is Batman. There is Superman. There is Spider Man. There is a live action and a cartoon version of the power rangers. And all these animated superheroes have one thing in common. They are incredibly buff. Not just in good shape. The muscles on these drawings pop like someone stencilled in the outlines of a weight lifting magazine. The cartoonishness pushes the muscles even further, making them bigger and stronger than is really humanly possible, and of course the heroes have the supernatural superhero strength to go with it.

I worry that this may send negative messages to my son. In the same way that little girls are bombarded with false images of what is beautiful at a young age, I worry that my son is watching Superman and Batman and receiving mixed signals on what it means to be a hero. The original spiderman. The one from the comics, he was a nerd. It wasn't his brawn at all. He could leap around, but he was a scientist, an average joe, even a bit of a geek. The cartoon spider man my son watches out muscles his villains. I just hope my son doesn't grow up thinking the best way to solve problems is to out muscle them.

That said, here's some refreshing primal nutrition knowledge that can be found at the vitamin shoppe.

I suppose I've always seen American cartoons as right side up and Japanese cartoons as upside down. The only Japanese cartoons I had access to as a youth were the dirty ones.

My wholesome childhood included the Disney afternoon, and Saturday morning was full of animated ducks and rabbits, looney toons. Of course they were some of the most violent shows ever created. Tom and Jerry were downright brutal. But it was still kids geared.

The first Japanese cartoon I ever saw was Ghost in the shell. The movie opens on a smokin' hot naked cartoon body. My parents had no clue. A week later, my dad rented me Akira. He'd never seen it, only heard about it, and it was a cartoon, so what's the harm to a six year old kid.

This is Akira, which includes rape, murder, genocide, and hundreds of exploding body parts. Who can forget the classic scene when Yuko is trapped in the fleshy, sludgy folds of her boyfriends skin, now that he has turned into a blob-monster the size of a city block. A single tear drops from Yuko's face as her skin cage tightens and her body bursts into a bloody mess. Perfect for a six year old.

Anyway, weather my love for the original American shows, or my fear of the racy Japanese material, today I love cartoons more than ever, whichever side of the Pacific they were inked.

Finally, if you're thinking of going on a paleo diet, I suggest reading this health blog first. It's got some great advice for primal newcomers.

So far, I've written some (pretty good, I think) diatribes about the cartoons of my youth. But, today I'm going to talk about a newer generation's favorite cartoon. The era of SpongeBob SquarePants.

SpongeBob's rose to power near the turn of the 21st century. Within a year of the first season, every kid between the ages of 5 and 11 had a SpongeBob backpack, a SpongeBob lunch pail, a SpongeBob pillow, and a SpongeBob secret decoder wrist watch. The little yellow fellow was everywhere. One of the executive producers of the show delivered an economics speech at my college. The money generated from that show was astronomical.

So, I watched it.

A 20 year old man, I watched SpongeBob almost religiously, more so than any other television show in college. It was genius. Spongebob was the height of whimsy. It was colorful, and quick, and sincere. It was not morally grounded like most Saturday morning cartoons (Goof Troupe, G.I. Joe), nor was it malicious like the rest (Ren & Stimpy, Tom & Jerry). It alluded to very adult themes while staying grounded in kids' playfulness. There was a mild self-awareness, plenty of childish puns, and broad conceptual problems. In one episode SpongeBob is sucked into a time vortex and creates a paradox when he meets his future self, he becomes self aware and comes to the conclusion he might only exist because he believes he exists. The show just made college level philosophy 101 accessible to children. Another episode is pointed satire at the absurdity of modern marketing, yet delivered in easy-to-chew chunks of humor for the under 10 crowd. Another episode centers around karate chopping addiction. Painfully funny, but also painfully similar to (and most likely derived from) the real life problems of sex/alcohol/gambling addiction.

Overall, SpongeBob is one of the best kids cartoons ever inked.

Okay, now time for the washboard abs stuff. This week learn about omega 3 supplements and buy some omega 3 capsules. You'll be glad you did.

I was very young when the care bears were popular. My sister and I owned several, we loved the cartoon, and I believe we developed a fine taste for the care bear candies, or fruit chews, or whatever sugar-loaded care-bear shaped substance our mother found at the shop-and-go.

The care bears were a group of multicolored bears, each with a different picture on their tummy. I don't remember the significance of the picture, I guess it was an easy way to distinguish their personalities. The care bears battled all sorts of grumpy, gremliny, malicious baddies, and they always prevailed with the wonderful weapon of choice, the "Care Bear Stare." The Bears would line up, hold hands, and then light would shoot out of their tummies at the hideous villain. Eventually the villain would cry, or grow a heart, or start to care, and the day would be won. Bizarre and a bit creepy.

Then came a video where the care bears fought an evil carnaval. Bad idea. First, the carnival was REALLY evil. It devoured children. Yeah, no stops pulled, kids died. Second, the care bear stare was useless against the evils of the carnival. And finally, the story played off of every gypsy stereotype ever known. Nothing like caring to push forth prejudice. Way to go, care bears.

Also, way to go orthorexia nervosa, just for being you. And way to find person, find a person website, your person has been found.

G.I. Joe. A real American Hero. The original Joes were 12inches tall. The barbie doll for the jingoist little boy of the 50's. The Joes fought the Nazi's a clear and recent enemy, kill those Germans.

In the 80's G.I. Joe was re-invented as the modern action figure. The Joes were 3.5 inches tall. You could fit several in a lunchbox, take them to school and use them to fight with your friends at lunch. The new enemy was a covert World-destruction-bent cloister called Cobra. Cobra was evil, they belonged to know country and infested every country. A perfect enemy for Joe to fight perenially.

Currently Hollywood is making a G.I. Joe movie. Cobra is still the enemy, it is live action, and starring a host of B-List action heroes. My question is, how do they avoid the painfully similar parallels between Cobra and Al-Queda. Or do they?  Will Hollywood work frantically to make sure the G.I. Joe movie doesn't offend any nationality or culture. Or will they use G.I. Joe to make a statement about what's going on in the world with terrorism. I'm hoping for the latter.

I'm also hoping to buy vitamin and primal nutrition in the coming weeks. I'm hellbent for health, and I'm all over the internet trying to find better vitamins and supplements.

I own a shirt that says, "Robot in Disguise."

My roommate is currently auctioning off all his old transformers on e-Bay. The original Optimus Prime and the original Omegatron can catch a high price, even if they aren't boxed. Each toy he's selling comes with a little booklet included with the original package. The booklet tells the backstory of the transformers and shows what other toys are available for purchase. The first thing that strikes me about these toys is the incredible engineering, and complicated pieces and parts. These action heroes really tested the metal of children in the 80's. The other thing I notice from the booklet is the copywright: 1982. The year I was born.

You see, I was always a bit young for transformers. They were for the older kids, which meant I admired them even more. I watched some of the transformer cartoons, but not enough to know the ins and outs of the saga. I wasn't sure why the battle bots needed to stop the thing that needed to be stopped, I just remember the boom box turning into a robot and that's about it. And there was a kid, of course.

Anyway, I wonder what today's transformer toys are like. Are they as well crafted as the one's from the 80's or are they dumbed down for a "safer" generation of children? Does optimus prime really morph all the way into a truck again, or does it just twist and shout catch phrases when a button is pressed?

And now on to the topic of health. Vitamins online and omega 3 supplements are my two links for this week. Enjoy!

I have a theory of how to figure out a person's age. Ask them what their favorite childhood cartoons were.

I believe the cartoons a kid watches can place him within a year of his/her age.

I was born in 1982.

My favorite cartoons were Duck Tales, Ninja Turtles, and Darkwing Duck.

I heard of Thundercats and Transformers, but I had maybe only seen a transformers cartoon once or twice. The older kids had all the transformers while I had Turtles.

Similarly, my sister had American Girls. There were four American girls when my sister was a child: Molly, Felicity, Kirsten, and Samantha. Each girl represented a different American time period. American girls are still around today, but there are more, girls my sister knows nothing about. But women younger than my sister remember the newer ones, the American girl from the 1970's, or the one from the late 1800's.

My theory is rather silly, but it pops up in conversation all the time. Somebody makes a pop culture reference "Oh man that sucked! That's like the time Omegatron kidnapped Jack Spraggart! (sorry for the officious example)" Let's say this is at a dinner of 12. Four other guys say, "Damn! That's exactly like it was!" and the other just nod and smile. These four guys are within a year of each other's age, whereas the others may be a bit younger.

Anyway, so this blog is about the cartoons of my youth. I watched a few recently and they weren't half bad. I'll start out with the Ducks and the Turtles and I'll work my way out from there.