Remember your childhood days in front of the telly when your folks found an easier method to entertain your younger self?
I’m sure you can recall your favourite cartoon that had you glued to the TV screen for hours. I bet you still watch cartoons, right?
Right.
Most cartoon characters are unforgettable (with their exaggerated features and funny catchphrases), and you get some characters that embodied epic.
However, animation is not only humorous, it can get pretty deep as well. The greatest lesson I learnt from cartoons, was never to keep ‘Scars’ as friends.
Here are 5 cartoon picks that got deeper than we expected:
1. Tom and Jerry
When you think of Tom and Jerry, you immediately think ‘worst enemies’. However, if you look at the two characters closely, the antics between the two run deeper than just a cat and mouse chase. Although Jerry is a tiny mouse and Tom is a big house cat, Jerry played a major role in Tom’s life and vice versa.
Tom and Jerry could be political parties/countries vying for power. Relying on each other to survive, to stay amused, and to attain resources to further their ambition.
Did you know? In their first outing, Tom was actually called Jasper, while Jerry was referred to as Jinx.
2. Looney Tunes
Millions of kids today love Bugs Bunny, Tweety, Sylvester, Duffy Duck, and the rest of the Looney Tunes gang just as much as children loved them back in the 1930s when they were first created.
We learnt as kids that hygiene was essential to snag a romantic interest. As seen by Pépé LePew who scared women away with his lack of hygiene, or his inability to grant them space. Also if you would like to mate, you ought to stay within your own species.
Many of these cartoons moulded our perception of the world and how to relate and react to it. Sometimes this was not necessarily a good thing.
Did you know?
Bugs Bunny is a known traveller however very few people are aware of where Bugs originally came from. Bugs was born in Brooklyn, New York.
3. Rick And Morty
Dreams Within Dreams Within Dreams. This was a mind boggler, inception-esque episode. The episode takes the concept of implanting an idea into someone else’s mind to an extreme. The plan is to make Mr Goldenfold give Morty better grades, so in the dream, they pretend to be terrorists who are going to hijack a plane…unless Morty gets a good grade in math. Goldenfold eventually wakes up decides that he’ll give Morty an A, “…and that’s my idea! That is an original thought!”
After the episode, you wonder if you’ve been tripping. However, it has you thinking that you too could attempt a dream reality or enter into an alternate reality/ parallel universe or…or…or. This one ran deep.
4. The Simpsons
Homer and Bart convert to Catholicism in season 16, “The Father, The Son and the Holy Guest Star” episode.
To the horror of Marge and Rev Lovejoy, who struggle to win them back to the “one true faith” (The Western Branch of American Reform Presbylutheranism).
Homer’s confession: “I coveted the wife in Jaws 2, I lied to a waiter, I masturbated 8 billion times and have no plans to stop masturbating in the future. Woohoo! I’m clean! In your face, Lord!”
Religion isn’t funny, but the episode was a catharsis unto itself. We’re all human, we all ‘sin’ and we’re all flawed. Incorporating religion in such a popular animation is quite a ballsy moment in cartoon history.
5. Futurama
One of the outstanding qualities of Futurama is the ability to use alternate universes to have viewers question our humanity, morality and existential crisis. You see this in an episode in which the Planet Express crew finds itself in the year 1947 due to a mishap with a supernova and microwaved popcorn. They end up having to rescue Zoidberg from Area 51, keep Fry’s grandfather out of harm’s way, and repair the ship while interfering with history as little as possible.
“You mustn’t interfere with the past. Don’t do anything that affects anything. Unless it turns out that you were supposed to do it; in which case, for the love of God, don’t do it!” — Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
-TYI
