CARTOONS: Are they for kids or teens?

I’ve been down with malaria for the last 3 days (woe betide all mosquitoes) which means more home time, couch time and television time for me. I spent most of my time watching “Boomerang” yup! Cartoon Network’s Boomerang. I needed the humor jor, escape from the loud gun sounds and “actors wey bullet kno dey see dem eye” on M-net, banging beats on MTV and the never ending vuvuzela buzz on SuperSport 3. (I refuse to comment on “Africa Magic” for fear that I would never stop).

I was watching boomerang alongside my lil sis and I swear I laughed harder than she did. I think this was cause of the jokes she never understood that I did; imma give you a couple of examples;

THE FLINSTONES
In this episode, Fred Flinstone was x-rayed and butterflies were seen flying in his tummy. While my sister kept on starring I went “oh my god, the ‘butterflies in my stomach’ expression”. How many kids knew that?

POPEYE
We all know Popeye the sailor man right? The cartoon I suspect was created by the CIA to convince white kids to eat their vegetables.
Well, in this episode Popeye was stuck on an island with his big buff beard mate when the usual lekpa babe got blown to the island. All of a sudden, two homies laughing on a beach became enemies; fighting over a girl. Popeye even had two digest a can or two of his famous spinach at some point. Seeing how far 2 cartoon guy characters would go after a girl character sure made me laugh more than my sis especially in relation to things around me.

TOM & JERRY
In this episode, Tom’s owner goes for poker night out with “the girls”. Tom calls a pretty female cat over. She eats all his food, pops his wine, clearly dodges all Tom’s attempted hugs and kisses and at he end plays tag-team alongside Jerry to deal the final blow. Poor Tom. I yelled “Damn! she a gold digger” my sis looked at me all confused.

I could give many more examples I came across over the last 3 days but I choose to stop here and ask again “is
cartoons for kids or teens”?

Personally, I’m of the opinion cartoons should be left for the kids. You can’t imagine the headache I got doing all the analysis, at times I went “unbelievable”. Other times my sister just laughed and I wondered was that actually funny. Truth be told, kids are in a world of their own which they share with cartoons and who we to trespass.

Goodbye boomerang, I rather be stuck with my gun sounds, “actor no dey die” movies, vuvuzela buzzes in SA stadiums and the banging beats of Timberland.