Saturday, March 21, 2009

The Value of a Good Cartoon!!


Remember back in the day (what ever day that may be) when you would watch a show that just had a good message or moral behind the story. Like Fat Albert for instance. Bill Cosby would always have his little segment where he would share with the viewer some sort of valuable message, like don't judge a book by its cover or eat jell-o pudding pops. Or at the end of the Care Bears when they would have the Care A Lot skit.....oh.... like that one where those two kids are fighting over the lime green Popsicle and then it breaks and melts on the floor..... no one got the Popsicle!!! Then Cheer Bear would show up with another Lime Green Popsicle and break it in half and disperse the parts equally.... and everyone was happy!!!! And these are the messages that are missing in alot of today's programming.

So recently I've been watching the anime sensation Avatar: The Last Air Bender. For those of you that don't know, The Avatar is a cartoon about a little Buddhist monk whose destiny it is to save the world from the Evil Fire Nation.

The show is laced with amazing little stories and morals and most of them based in a realm of Buddhist and Yogic philosophy. There's even an episode where the Avatar (Aang is his name) has to meet up with a Yoga guru so that he may help Aang open and master his 7 Chakras. Although most people aren't going to master and clear their Chakras in 5 minutes like Aang did,
it's still pretty amazing to see a cartoon that teaches kids about these philosophies. As well, when it comes time for Aang to defeat the Fire Lord (basically killing him) Aang remembers his Buddhist morals and instead of destroying the Evil Fire Lord he chooses the path of non-violence and merely takes away the Fire Lord's powerful ability to control fire.

All in all, I would have to say that I would recommend that anyone should watch the Avatar....from young to old. There are several valuable lessons to be learned and it's also
got some really amazing animation, general plot, great character development and it's pretty damn funny in my books.....it also made me cry a little bit!!

So think about it the next time you're thinking of something interesting and entertaining to watch....there's a show out there that actually has a base of true virtue underlying a dynamic story!!!

GO AVATAR!!!

Namaste...shanti...shanti...shanti