By Clint McElroy
HQ 44 | SPRING 2002
There is a list of things my sons will have nothing to do with. It includes, but is not limited to, lima beans, ballroom dancing and any combination of the words “clean” and “bedroom.” For the most part I agree with the items on their list, but I recently observed a new item on the list that perplexes me.
They seem to have an aversion to physical activity.
No, more than an aversion, it has taken on the appearance of a phobia. What with 247 channels on the digital cable box, the unlimited vistas of the internet and video games that have more visual reality than, well, reality, apparently there just isn’t room in their busy schedules to expend the smallest erg of energy doing something. Anything.
Kids don’t “go out and play” anymore. If they do venture outside the walls of home it’s to go to Blockbuster to get a video or DVD. You see DVD’s now come with more than just movies. They also include 40-some hours of behind-the-scenes footage, interviews with the stars, commentary from the director and deleted scenes. It now takes longer to watch a movie than it took to film the darned thing.
We are raising a generation of mutants. I have this image of our kids all grown up and looking like these aliens I remember from an episode of “Space Ghost,” where all the people were shaped like eggs, with these pitiful withered arms and legs. Their bidding was done by these little flying robots. Of course, our children don’t have little flying robots to do their bidding, apparently that’s Mom and Dad’s job.
Observe your children. Watch them come slumping home from school, dragging like they just spent a 14-hour shift shoveling fuel into a blast furnace somewhere instead of what they really did, which was sitting at a desk sleeping through Botany class. Marvel as they use the last of their vitality to open the kitchen cabinet, barely able to stuff eight Little Debbie cakes into their mouths. Suggest they go outside to get a little exercise and fresh air, and be amazed as they react as if you had said, “Grandma Bertha needs you to shave her back.”
So who do I blame for the appalling physical condition of America’s Youth? Simple.
I blame Mr. Cartoon.
Boys and girls just home from school were mesmerized by his star-spangled blazer and his hat worn at a jaunty angle. Their senses were assailed by the hilarious animated vignettes he presented. He gave away prizes and even had a “Yuck Bucket.” Why do you think he always wore sunglasses? It was so we couldn’t pick him out of a line-up!
Once conditioned by this insidious genius, it was a simple transition for a child to stay glued to the TV after Mr. Cartoon went off, and watch the “Banana Splits,” “H.R Pufnstuf,” even the “Archies.” From there, the hard stuffŠ “Dukes of Hazard,” “Emergency,” and “The Six Million Dollar Man.” Oh the irony! While they were making Steve Austin “better, stronger, faster,” they were making our children “fatter, lazier, slower.”
Of course, TV begat video games, begat the internet, and before you know it, the only muscles our children were developing were the ones that made the thumb push the buttons on joysticks. All because of Mr. Cartoon.
For the time being, I prefer to think of Beeper as an unwilling accomplice.
