Where have they gone?

We live in a world far more advanced than the one we grew up in. In the last 15 years we have gone from America Online Dial Up connection, that disconnected when a family member from overseas would call the house, to an era where you can browse the web while talking to your family member from overseas and at the same time downloading the new Jay-Z music video and keeping track of how many miles you have ran and how many calories you have lost, all on your cellphone. We live in an age where we have electric cars, little robot vacuum's that sense the dirt on the floor, chairs that give you a Swedish massage, TIVO and freaking laser eye surgery.

That all being said we have, as a society, severely digressed in one very important area... Cartoons. This morning I woke up and thought to myself "hmmm, it's Saturday, maybe I should re-live my childhood and tune in to some cartoons." As most of us late 20 year old and early 30 year old's remember, Saturday morning cartoons were the best. You had G.I. JOE, He-Man, Transformers and Voltron which would as a young boy breed your inner warrior. After watching those shows I would be all wired up ready to save the planet by killing any and all forces of evil. Then of course you had the ever inspiring trio of Duck Tales, Rescue Rangers and Tail Spin. By the time I would be finished watching those three I was ready to go to Africa and search for the hidden treasures of King Solomon. (Shout out to Smurfs, Dennis the Menace, Gummi Bears and my favorite Thunder Cats). Yet this morning to my shock and disappointment I was confronted by Dora the Explorer, Pokemon, Sponge Bob Square Pants and last but not least Tele Tubbies. What in the name of everything holly happened to cartoons? What are we feeding into our children's minds with these for the lack of better term retarded shows? Tele Tubbies will be giving me nightmares tonight...

The most surprising part of all this is that kids these days are more advanced than we were as children. They fill up places like Howie's Game shack, spend $4.50 on an energy drink and plug their minds into some online death match for seven hours. So the question is how is it possible that the same kids that grow up watching these lame cartoons turn to Halo and crazy first person shooter gamers while those of us who watched G.I. Joe ended up playing Tecmo Super Bowl or just would go outside in the fresh air and shoot a basketball?

After several minutes of contemplation I could only come up with one answer... It's a conspiracy. You see the more lame and retarded you make the cartoons you push the kids away from them. By pushing the kids away from the television (that the parents would pay the monthly bill on anyways) you are creating a market for video games, internet game software, more powerful computers, energy drinks and ADD pills. Case in point, when I go to Best Buy or Toys-R-Us this morning to buy my little one year old cousin a xmas gift what I am going to run into is a bunch of parents running around frantically fighting over the last new edition of Modern Warfare or Command and Conquer for their zombie look alike 13 year old who has had way too many red bull drinks for 10 am, who still doesn't like girls and who thinks John Madden is currently a great quarterback in the NFL because his name is on a video game.... So Sad.

So my solution, well I don't have one... or at least have not had time to contemplate yet. But for now I will resort to downloading my favorite cartoons from torrents and by the help of my friends connecting my computer to my television and to live stream an old G.I. Joe episode through a hub network from a torrent that was uploaded in India in a zip file... Oh my god I am turning into one of them.... FML.

P.S. Deadline met.