Happy Halloween everybody.
Last night and the night before that we, as a family, sat down and watched the Halloween classic, It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Afterward, my wife and I were like, why is this a kids classic? My four year old son liked it so much the first time he wanted to see it again and then again the next day. So I had to step back and figure out why my son liked it and why my wife and I said, why?
An adult classic.
Watching It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown as an adult in a politically correct world is weird. Charlie Brown is basically the neighborhood punching bag. Everybody calls him blockhead and he takes it. Dr. Phil could help him I think. Lucy, well she is the neighborhood bully. Yet, nobody ever stands up to her. And where is DCFS when you need them? Pigpen hasn't had a bath in who knows how long and Linus stays out all night until 4am laying in a pumpkin patch unnoticed by any adults. Then you have the war loving Snoopy flying around during WWI shooting his guns like a wild man.
A kids classic.
Any parent knows that when you tell your child not to do something, they automatically want to do that exact thing. We tell our son not to use "ugly" words. Words like shut-up, stupid, and poopy head to name a few. Our guy does pretty well and we believe he understands why. We also know that if he hears others using a designated "ugly" word it means he has found a loophole in the policy. Which is why I think he likes It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. The show is full of shut-ups and stupids. He never heard blockhead before, but now that he knows it is an ugly word I'm pretty sure we'll be hearing that around the house. Mind you, our son is smart enough not to call anyone a blockhead. I just feel bad for the self-esteem of his stuffed animals.
I'm not saying I'm never going to watch this cartoon again. I still like it. I just find it funny how times change. This cartoon would probably never make it to air today as an original kid cartoon. I think as a whole we should realize we a wound way to tight.
I'll have to remember that when my son tells me, "shut-up blockhead".
4 comments:
Happy Halloween Mark! We recorded but haven't watched Charlie Brown yet, lol, maybe we should skip it. I'm sure mine will be using blockhead too.
It does amazing in the ratings year after year. The problem as adults we look too deep into these things. Just keep it simple people.
No, don't skip it. We need to fight all this politically correctness crap.
All the good cartoons are somewhat inappropriate, we watch a lot of Tom and Jerry, lol so far it hasn't had an lasting impact. I'll take Charlie Brown over whiny Caliou any day.
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