Animation generation

Remember the beginning of your freshman year of college? "What's your name?" "Where are you from?" So many lost and generic conversations. Every once in a while, though, you'd find something great to talk about right off the bat. You'd connect with someone on some funny topic and find that you both had plenty to say. Wouldn't it be great if you could do that all the time?

Ah, gentle reader. It's so easy. If I learned nothing else three and a half years ago (and I can't say for certain that I didn't), it's that college students love to talk about cartoons.

Cartoons _ and all children's television shows _ form a touchstone for our entire generation. They're an all-inclusive common ground that's unique to each five-to ten-year segment of the population. Kids today don't know Thundercats or the original Transformers (there are some bizarre variations that have none of the red-white-and-blue simplicity of the first generation) or He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. These shows are just for us. Meet a stranger around your own age (give or take several years) and you can form an instant bond over Garfield and Friends or DuckTales or the theme song to The Gummi Bears.

It's easy to expand out of your immediate age range, too. Throw some Hanna Barbara and Looney Tunes classics into the mix and you can start a conversation with half of America. And don't even get started on the borderline range of cartoons that we were probably too old to watch shamelessly but that we remember anyway. In 1994, I knew I was too old to watch Animaniacs, so I just did it quietly.

You laugh? Don't pretend you didn't do it, too. You probably still watch cartoons. The difference is that you can have zero shame about it now. With the variety of shows out there, everyone has something original to say.

Just while reading this, you've probably thought of a half-dozen cartoons that I haven't thought about in years. Everyone has something to contribute, and everyone has fun being reminded of lost fragments of childhood.

Why do these shows make for such potent memories? Why do we still remember the insipid lyrics to a vanished Saturday morning cartoon? Why do we love remembering them? Maybe the memories you make when you're young are more potent than the rest. Maybe everyone likes feeling younger, even when they're still pretty damn young anyway. Maybe _ just maybe _ Transformers is one of our culture's greatest artistic achievements. Who can say?

(My bet's on that last one, though. Remember Transformers: The Movie? It has Robert Stack, Orson Welles, Eric Idle, Leonard Nimoy, Judd Nelson, and an awesome '80s butt-rock soundtrack. Incredible.)

Reliving your childhood as a twentysomething is valuable not just for nostalgia but for perspective. Batman: The Animated Series used to qualify as high drama in my mind (so did the original Batman TV series, but that's a different story), and I love seeing it again to understand how much of the weight was legitimate and how much was just the heightened realism that comes with being young. I find it's about half and half, but if you didn't watch the shows in the first place, it's too late for you to start feeling the love now.

That sense of history makes them fun to talk about, too. We all love our childhood shows, but we also know that they can be pretty stupid and silly. No one fears looking stupid talking about cartoons. You're already talking about cartoons with grown people. How much sillier are you going to get? When you're contrasting Buster and Babs with Bugs, you're already far enough off the deep end to be beyond reproach. Go for it! Be shameless.

Guys, this makes for some amazing opportunities. It's the all-purpose icebreaker! Imagine: you tag along with your friends to a party where the beer is free and you know no one. You jam into a keg line with a red cup in hand and almost knock down some nice, curly-haired girl from Minnesota.

(Note that women are welcome to ignore this whole argument. No girl has ever had trouble starting a conversation with a single guy who's in line for a beer. You don't need the help. Congratulations!)

So what do you do? How do you catch her attention? Is it easier to talk about 1) where someone else is from (as though you know anything about Minnesota), 2) where you are from (as though anyone wants to hear more about Jersey), or 3) Smurfs?

Now, it's essential that you know your background for these discussions. Sure, bringing up the oblique drug references in Scooby Doo may wow some innocent farm girl, but you aren't 16 anymore. No amateur hour allowed here. If some anonymous Abercrombie trying to steal your thunder brings up how much sex Smurfette must have, you have to be right on top of him, pointing out that Smurfette was originally an evil Smurf created by Gargamel who was converted to her healthy blond-and-blue state by the goodness of the Smurfs, and that since the Smurfs existed before she came along, the species must reproduce asexually, meaning that no one's having sex with Smurfette at all! Not even Papa!

That's easy! And you just shot down his attempted bit of titillation with some impressive '80s-cartoon trivia. Believe me, the women will be falling all over you.

The funny thing is that this trend doesn't end with the cartoons we watched when we were younger. Look at The Simpsons: A cartoon that draws together college students everywhere for obsessive rewatching, memorizing, and quoting. It's no accident that the show's on three times a day. It's the latest and greatest of the cartoons that have brought our generation together. Of course, people will remember The Simpsons in thirty years as something more than a kid's program, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the same generation that followed the adventures of Danger Mouse has fallen so heavily for an intelligent cartoon aimed at adults.

The best part of it all? Cable networks have kept many of our old favorites alive. No matter what you loved most when you were younger, you can find it out there somewhere. Sorry, the next generation of children won't love it the way you do, but you shouldn't care. Grow old, eat pretzels, and watch The Snorks until you fall asleep. It's a good life.