To all my readers out there, I hope that one day we can sit down face-to-face over a warm Happy Meal and discuss the deeper things in life. Like, why when you send something by boat, it’s called cargo but when you send something by car, it’s called a shipment.

You know, things that have real meaning.

Then during this grand discussion, I hope you ask me one very simple question:

“Token Single Guy…”

“Yes?”

“Where is your happy place?”

With which I would reply:

“My young Padawan, somewhere there is a room that contains unspeakable joy. It is a place touched softly by the infant rays of morning light, where a warm blanket waits to envelope you. And as you feast on 2% milk and sprinkled doughnuts, you watch a half naked man on television swing his unsheathed sword around, and from the very depths of his ferocious pecks cry out, “I have the power”.

This, my friend, is where boys become men.

No, I’m not referring to the next episode of TMZ involving an Arnold Schwarzenegger scandal, I am of course referring to my fond childhood memories of watching He-Man on Saturday mornings. As a child of the 80’s and early 90’s, I loved my Saturday mornings more than E.T., more than the new Mickey Mouse Club, and more than those migraine inducing neon colors.

So it’s no wonder that on one Saturday, as a single guy in my new apartment, I decided to indulge myself once more in the joys of these particular mornings.

With sleepy eyes and a warm Krispy Kreme doughnut in hand, I sit down, turn the television on, and find myself staring at what looks like a square piece of swiss cheese laughing hysterically in his pineapple under the sea.

What the (Enter expletive of your choice…actually, go ahead and add several)!?

This can’t be what kids are watching now, right?

I change the channel and find some guy with rockstar hair and mascara raising his fists and screaming, Time to duel.

I feel a little better about this promising premise until, at the high point of the show’s tension, this Axel Rose type character does not throw fists but rather playing cards onto a table.

What? If He-Man were in the arena, he’d walk right up to the main character, slap the cards out of his hands, and punch the little punk kid in the nose.

Over and over I change the channels and find myself faced with the same awful things.

Where’s the drama?

Where’s the action?

Where the crap are all the bad guys? I mean, really really evil, bad guys! After all the channel surfing the worst bad guy I found was no less threatening than a Care Bear with PMS. Okay Care Bears, 1…2…3…glare!

It’s shameful what society has done to our morning cartoons. Gone away are the incredible dark noir stories of ‘Batman the Animated Series’ (part of the influence for my writing today). Banished are the moral lessons that use to teach us between right and wrong ( ‘And now you know, and knowing is half the battle’). Even the echo friendly messages of Captain Planet (the silver guy with the mullet) and his Planeteers have fallen by the wayside to make room for shows involving characters who ignore the environment and spend all their time battling it out in arenas with cards, tops, and little pets.

No wonder we have such bad bullying problems today. No one has ever watched Lionel kick Mumm-rah’s butt on ‘Thundercats’! Instead they have been raised with a pink starfish and a sponge who work in fast food.

For the sake of our future I am reaching out to you America, save our Saturdays!

Bring back the ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ in their original glory (back when Shredder was bad and April O’neal was hot). Resurrect the Masters of the Universe and even He-Man’s twin sister, She-ra (who we all know should have been his girlfriend instead). Bring back the glory days of the ‘Smurfs’, ‘Pirates of Dark Waters’, and the heroic exploits of ‘Dark Wing Duck’. Heck, you don’t even see old Bugs Bunny cartoons anymore! Please, a little ACME mallet whack here and there is okay.

In the end I believe the children are our future, and according to the current Saturday Morning line-up, we’re screwed.

As for me and my continued search for something to watch…

Oh hey, Wizards of Waverly Place is on. Cool!

In memory of He-Man:

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