| By Abhay Gupta |
Back
when I was still a kid, we had a fixed formula for what made an awesome cartoon
show. This went beyond your run of the mill usual colourful, brainlessly
slapstick cartoons like Bugs Bunny and any other Looney Toons products. The
cartoon qualifying for awesomeness managed to combine that spectacular animation with fast-paced,
adrenalin-pumping action. And this is before Anime made it big in India. I’m
talking about shows like Swat Kats, Centurions, Galtar and the Golden Lance,
Ninja Robots, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, etc. You also had
shows like Powerpuff Girls, that were action-packed but silly, as well as shows
like Captain Planet, which attempted to teach kids values like recycling and
living green. Personally, blowing stuff up with massive guns and shiny swords
appealed to me more than using elemental super-powers to clean up the
environment.
The
formula was pretty simple. Have a generic character and give him a shiny
weapon. Throw in a dinosaur or a robot or a ninja, or even fighter jets and
cool gadgets. Mix them up in permutations if you have to. Have exaggerated
fight scenes followed by another generic good-versus-evil showdown each episode
with the good guys triumphing and yelling out catchphrases like Razor’s “Bingo”
or Captain Planet’s even cheesier “The power is yours!” or even He-man’s “I
have the power!” It’s the perfect way to appeal to young testosterone-driven
boys who grow up to become young testosterone-driven men with libidos. Action
cartoons were, by far, the one genre of cartoons that appealed to all male
members of our generation. Who amongst us doesn’t occasionally YouTube the
action cartoon oldies of our time now and then just to reminisce about how
freaking awesome growing up was?
I
mean, sure, school was tough. Homework was dull, teachers nagged, parents
exacerbated every situation by nagging some more. Playing cards and fitting in
with social groups was either too expensive or too difficult to understand.
What better way to connect with your peers than to discuss what happened in the
last episode of Swat Kats, breathlessly re-enacting exciting fight scenes and
discussing whether Razor or T-Bone was more badass? In my opinion, T-Bone was
decidedly more badass, if only because he was far more underrated than his
partner and I have a thing for underdogs. Or, if you’d prefer, underkats.
Even
today, I wish I had my own jet in a secret base under my building. Or a suit
that I could attach a whole bunch of guns, missiles and transportation devices
to. Don’t we all, sometimes? I mean, it’d be so useful to fight off bullies if
you could instantly attach an RPG to your arm or summon a super-powered
eco-freak with a green mullet. And that love for violent content and action
grows with us. As adult men, 300, Transformers, Terminator Salvation, Jurassic
Park, X-Men, Ninja Assassin and Gladiator are just a small sample of the kind
of movies we’d put on our top ten lists. And, going by the trend, they each
have one or more of the following qualifying items: shiny weapons, dinosaurs,
robots, ninjas, fighter jets (that turned into robots), a good-versus-evil
battle sequence and lots of stuff getting blown up. Action cartoons are every
young boy’s initiation process into the fast-paced themes of the all-general
action genre that is, inherently, male-bait.
Cowabunga,
anyone?
Abhay Gupta
What about me? Well, I don't know really. I could be brooding and nihilistic or bouncing off walls like flubber on crack. I categorize and analyze everything because I get bored easy. I'm a tv buff, movie buff, comic fanatic, atheist and meme-literate. I follow the words of a wise and all-knowing philosiraptor who once said: If one enjoys wasting time, is that time really wasted? And finally, cheesecake.
What about me? Well, I don't know really. I could be brooding and nihilistic or bouncing off walls like flubber on crack. I categorize and analyze everything because I get bored easy. I'm a tv buff, movie buff, comic fanatic, atheist and meme-literate. I follow the words of a wise and all-knowing philosiraptor who once said: If one enjoys wasting time, is that time really wasted? And finally, cheesecake.
