not a step

What happened to cartoons that make sense?

Though test scores indicate that today's kids should have trouble reading a stop sign, their choice in cartoons indicates otherwise. While it may not translate to the SATs or any other practical purpose, any child who actually understands what's happening on Pokémon deserves some kind of academic scholarship.

Translated from the Japanese, this cartoon features a plot that makes a James Joyce novel seem like an Archie comic. Though there seems to be some basic structure, jumping into it without having an eight-year-old explain what's going on is like watching 15 minutes from the fifth season of "Beverly Hills 90210" and then writing a book about the show's history.

The whole premise seems far too involved, especially for someone who grew up on "The Flintstones" - a show that pretty much summed everything up in the opening theme song. Once you grasped the "Flintstones" concept, your knowledge easily ported over to "The Jetsons" and, for a few episodes, "The Roman Holidays." Of the classic cartoons, only "Scooby Doo" ever required any thought, and that was easily solved by the producers making every episode using the exact same script.

"Pokémon," on the other hand, features an array of characters so confusing that even the characters on the show have to carry a computer to tell them who's who. After watching nearly an hour's worth of the program--what seemed to be the first two episodes, in fact - I still know less about the Pokémon universe than I do about presidential also-ran Lamar Alexander.

From what I can understand, the Pokémon, a race of violent stuffed animals, inhabit a special, poorly drawn universe full of unblinking humans. I have learned that the yellow teddy bear character seen on lunchboxes and in store windows is "Pikachu," and that his owner has trained him to electrocute other, less adorable creatures as they wander around a forest.

Pikachu and his master, an approximately 12-year-old boy named Ash, have their adventures without much in the way of adult supervision. It seems that Pokémon wrangling counts as a reasonable profession for minors, which somehow exempts Ash from any sort of schooling.

Sort of the Macaulay Culkin of the monster slavery set, Ash has no visible means of support, but his one outfit always seems clean, and he appears well fed. Perhaps he breeds the less-cute Pokémon for food, or maybe he has a trust fund. Either way, he has a fairly sweet gig whose only drawback seems to be the constant presence of the brother/sister duo of "evil" Pokémon trainers.

These folks, who have a vaguely incestuous thing going on, always have some sort of plan to mess with Ash and Pikachu. Luckily, because cartoon villains have the same success rate as UPN sitcoms, they always fail miserably.

Ash, of course, also has the requisite best friend and a platonic girlfriend who straddles the line between object of desire and possessor of cooties. These characters likely have names, but since humans don't make for salable dolls, it's not important that you know who they are. Realistically, grownups do not need to know which Pokémon does what. It almost never comes up in conversation at the office, and very few job interviews involve explaining the difference between Mewtoo and Charizard. Still, I'd take Scooby Doo over Pikachu, and Fred Flintstone could kick Ash's behind.

Check back every Friday for a new column
Not a Step Archives
About the Author
Acquiring this Column for Your Publication