In case you're not a big fan of '60s Saturday morning cartoons, or your cable provider doesn't provide it, Boomerang is Cartoon Network's repository for retro cartoons of all stripes, from old MGM shorts to "The Power Puff Girls" to its vast storehouse of Hanna-Barbera product.
Watching old episodes of "The Yogi Bear Show," I bonded with my daughter Lola. 3, and son Liam, 4, over the classic adventures of the gluttonous anti-hero Yogi and his little buddy-type pal Boo-Boo. Evie, howe
ver, has always found Hanna-Barbera cartoons agitating in the extreme. Not to mention objectionable on several other levels (the fine print on the Saturday Morning Cartoons of the '60s DVD set reads, "Not intended for children," due no doubt to all the smoking, sexual innuendo, and excessive violence, not to mention the creepy vibe of evil in shows like "The Herculoids").My son would chant "Yogi Bear! Yogi Bear! Yogi Bear!" whenever a Yogi cartoon ended and some lesser 'toon like "Mush-Mouse and Punkin'-Puss" or "Richocet Rabbit and Droopalong" would begin. I would then have to fast-forward through the unfunny, ultra-violent detritus of the mid-'60s H-B assembly line to get to the next Yogi Bear cartoon.
That's alll over now, thanks to the moratorium on Boomerang and all things Hanna-Barbera (well, all things except my prized Unrelated Segments, Guilloteens, and 13th Floor Elevators 45s on H-B's '60s record label, that is). Though I have a sentimental attachment to the likes of Huckleberry Hound and the Banana Splits, I know that Evie's right. I don't want to warp my kids' minds like mine got warped all those years ago.
Sorry, Yogi.
