When I think of my school days, I remember that I and some of my friends used to watch 'Disney Hour' at 6 o'clock on Zee or the Sony channel without fail. In fact, when we reached school the next morning, the topic of discussion used to be the cartoon seen the previous evening. We spent the lunch hours on discussions on the cartoons like Gummi Bears, Duck Tales, Chip & Dale, Tales Pin, Alladin, Mickey & Friends, etc. We even talked about cartoons on the cartoon network like Caption Planet, Swat Cats, The Centurions, Scooby Do and many more. Everybody - right from children in 1st standard to those in 10th used to watch the cartoons daily. Even some adults used to see the shows. Such was the power of these cartoons.
The cartoons have played quite a role in my upbringing indeed. I have unknowingly learnt quite a lot of things from these cartoons. While cartoons like Gummi Bears and Alladin took me to a new world which improved my ability to imagine, cartoons like Tales Pin and Duck Tales helped me learn the art of deducing from clues, thereby improving reasoning skills. (treasure hunting). Caption Planet threw light on the environment and nature while Swat Cats and Centurions focussed on the new developments. Apart from these teachings, the moral values like honesty, self-discipline, truthfulness, friendship, sacrifice, etc. were learnt from almost all these cartoons.
I wonder whats happened to the cartoons now.
Last week when I had been home and did not have much to do, I turned to the cartoons for fun. I was surprised to see that not a single old Disney cartoon was being telecasted on any of the children TV channels. 'Tom and Jerry' was being shown on the Cartoon Network for long stretches of 3 hours or so. Now 'Tom & Jerry' though good, (in terms of animation) doesn't help much w.r.t developing imagination, moral values. Nor can we watch the mindless cat and mouse show for hours long. The other cartoons shown on the cartoon network were not watchable due to poor animation or negligible content. The only cartoon on which was watchable on the Cartoon Network was Richie Rich. But the number of breaks in the 30 minutes show (about 4 or 5) took all the fun away .
Other channels like the Toon Disney showed sme cartoons under the name JETIX. The quality of animation of these JETIX cartoons was pitiful. I couldn't distinguish one character from other. (I wonder whats happened to the animation industry in spite of the advances in digital technology). On the Pogo channel, some good cartoons were being shown but none were interesting. These cartoons were appropriate only for a child in K.G class - were filled with a lot of colors and music with no story whatsoever. When I tuned to the Disney Channel, I was surprised to see no animated shows screened. I tried to see the much hyped recent cartoons of Shin Chan and the Pokemon on Hungama channel but unfortunately none of these were aired during my stay of 5 days.
Largely, I am disappointed with the quality and the content of the cartoons aired on television. None of the cartoons are what can be called appealing to the children or the teen agers. None of them had any quality of the brilliant Disney Cartoons mentioned before.
I really feel that the kids of today are missing out on an important aspect in their upbringing - the cartoons.
I wish that the old cartoons are again aired on the television so that kids of this generation do not miss out on the wonderful opportunity to learn from the cartoons on their own.
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