My Top Three (or Four) TV Shows: Cartoons

I am suffering from a disconnect with reality, as all three of my top favorite television shows are cartoons. But is it really so unrealistic of me, considering what is really being offered out there?

First, let me say that I don't care for either The Simpsons, Family Guy, or King of the Hill. I don't know, they just rub me the wrong way, that's all (although the father character in Family Guy thoroughly cracks me up). And perhaps my favorites rub you the wrong way as well: South Park, Beavis and Butthead, and SpongeBob SquarePants.

When each of these shows first came out, I had negative impressions of them, keeping me from taking the time to watch them and let their characters settle in. And in each program, it is the strong characters who carry the show. All three are also skillfully satirical, doing so in a way that "leaves no prisoners".

SpongBob SquarePants, set on the bottom of the sea in a place called "Bikini Bottom", features the title character, a Gomer Pyle-like "innocent-but-irritating" yellow kitchen sponge, along with his friends: a stupid starfish, a skinflint crab, a supersmart tomboy squirrel (usually in a diving suit), and my favorite, a supercynical and vain octopus. I tend to root for this last character, named Squidward, and usually feel that an episode without his presence is just not up to the standards of the others.

In like fashion, I dig not only the title characters in Beavis and Butthead, two thoroughly clueless teenage boys, but also the way the show pokes merciless fun at the way schools are run, especially with regard to their teachers and administration.

The same holds for South Park, a show about fourth-graders "growing up" in the title fictional town, located somewhere in Colorado. Stan is the main character, but my favorites are the evil Eric Cartman (a rotund pal of Stan's), tag-along naive Butters, and Stan's father, who epitomizes the often ridiculous pretensions permeating adult society.

Oh, I might want to include my fourth favorite show, also a cartoon: The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. But I'm referring to the classically-animated cartoon, not the marionette or computer-animated spinoffs (avoid these at all costs). Another show with rock-solid characters, my favorites being the fastidious Rabbit and the gloomy-but-wise Eeyore. And like B & B, The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is no longer anywhere to be found on my TV "dial".

Nothing on TV is for real anymore, I'm afraid. Not even "reality television". Not even much of the news, for the large part (especially on Fox). So if you don't mind, I'll stick with Beavis and Butthead on DVD (it is no longer aired), South Park, and SpongeBob. And maybe it's time for me to begin amassing my Winnie the Pooh collection as well.