Lady and the Tramp, Cinderella, Snow White,  The Fox and the Hound.  What do all of these have in common besides being animated movies geared towards children?  They all suck, granted they probably didn’t seem to suck quite as much when they were originally released, but compared to todays kid’s movies, they are down right awful.  In light of the plots, quality of the writing, and over all animation, it’s no wonder my parents rarely took me to see movies when I was young.  Well, that and I probably didn’t deserve it, nor did they want to spend the $8 it would have taken to treat our entire family to a movie and refreshments (the refreshments would have been smuggled in to the theatre, no way my parents were paying concession prices for candy and pop) back when I was a kid.

Friday night the Jansma family decided to hit Celebration Cinema South to see Zootopia (No, Zootopia is not a film about the U2 tour back in the 90’centered on their Zooropa Album, one of the lowest points in the band’s history, there isn’t a single song on the album that I recognize or that is worthy of mentioning).   Zootopia is about a rabbit who dreams of becoming a policewomen and moving to Zootopia, a city where predators and prey live in perfect harmony.  The movie was way beyond the reach of my kid’s and probably a number of the adults in the theatre as well, but the strategy of theatre executives to make kid’s movie’s more appealing to adults makes complete sense.  Since kids are incapable of taking themselves to the theatre (unless they have an uber account) it is essential that the parents be willing to sit through whatever movie their children are currently clamoring to go see. (My kids typically aren’t clamoring to see anything, it’s mostly my idea)

Back in my day this was a fact that studios failed to realize and it resulted in movies about princess’s and dwarfs named happy, bashful, and sneezy.  On rare occasions my kids actually have watched All Dogs Go To Heaven which is on our DVR (I would erase it but I don’t know how and fear that I would delete all the other movies that placate my kids if I attempted to permanently remove All Dogs Go to Heaven), it is a truly awful piece of garbage plus everyone knows dogs don’t have souls, even my five year old should know that.  I would rather watch the original Toy Story for 312th time than be tormented by a showing of All Dogs Go To Heaven.   Disguising movies as made for kids when they are more geared towards adults is complete genius and has resulted in amazing profits for the studios that are smart enough to implement this movie making strategy.  It’s hard for me to imagine that any of the animated movies made back when I was a kid could even come close to the  financial success of the Toy Story franchise, Kung Fu Panda franchise, and all the other movies Pixar and Disney have managed to create with today’s computer generated animation.

I realize there are some of you out there saying “I don’t go to movies, the last movie I saw in the theatre was Blazing Saddles”  What bothers me the most about people who make these statements proudly is that they think not going to movies is something to brag about.  Are you even an American?  Do you not realize that one of the best ways to escape reality not using some type of controlled substance is by going to the movies.  (The other next best option is sleeping, which I do a lot of)  Who doesn’t want to be Tom Cruise for two hours, jumping onto taxiing jumbo jets, holding their breath for 8 minutes and somehow having a defibrillator ready when you reemerge from under water in a nuclear power plant in Morocco, and of course banging a whole bunch of hot chicks, all the while wearing impeccable designer clothing even though the US government is putting every single resource they have into finding you.  (I just described the most recent Mission Impossible Movie, which was totally awesome)

Now I can escape reality and at the same time actually be entertained and I can do all of this  with my kids sitting next to me.  What parent would have ever thought this could be possible?  I think I speak for all parents when I say kids can be a primary reason for wanting to escape reality, and it strikes me as somewhat ironic that it can be done while one of the main reasons for a parents miserable existence is seated right next to you, your kid.   There are actually quite a few benefits to me for taking my kids to the movies.

First of all, I get to see a movie.  Second of all I get to eat Skittles, because my kids demand Skittles now every time we go to the movies. (There may actually be a Skittles gene, only they are willing to eat the Green Apple, I’ve gotten to the point where I throw all of the green skittles out, sounds like a lot of work but totally worth it to avoid the godawful aftertaste that they leave behind)  On top of that if Shirley is with us we also get popcorn with real butter, something my Dutchness can not justify, but I’ve learned not to stand between Shirley and her popcorn smothered in real butter.  Lastly, it keeps my kids entertained for roughly 90 minutes which is 90 minutes I don’t have to entertain them.

Movie execs aren’t the only ones who have realized the monetary gain to be had by including adults in children’s entertainment.  Back in the day it was hunter v. prey (Elmer Fudd and bugs bunny), Cat v. Mouse (Tom and Jerry) or Has v. Has not (Wile Coyote v. Roadrunner) when determining what cartoon to watch.  On top of that cartoons were typically only aired on Saturday mornings and were on a select few stations, granted there were only a few stations to begin with back then.  Now the variety of cartoons and stations they are aired on are more plentiful than flavors of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

With that variety has come an increase in creativity and quality to the extent that it has caused many of the morning cartoons my kids watch to actually catch my interest and has me paying attention to them.  (the cartoons, not my kids)  Granted, Dora is still terrible as well as some of the other cartoons that focus on teaching kids things, but if you take the ones that actually try and implement learning into their programming out of the equation, cartoons are quite watchable these days.

The genius in that is this.  When I was a kid I remember waking up at the crack of daw on a Saturday morning so I could watch cartoons.  At the time I often wondered why I was given unfettered and uninterrupted access to the television pretty much every Saturday morning.  Now being a parent I am fully aware of why but I try not to think too deeply about it.  So, there I am a six year old being bombarded with all of these advertisements for products that I will never be able to obtain. “Ok Bob, we really need to hit that 3 to 9 year old demographic with our new advertising campaign, granted they can’t drive to the store, nor do they have any money to buy anything even if they could, but this demographic if we market it right is truly going to pay dividends.”

Cartoons back then sucked and I’m pretty sure even after parents of that generation got done doing the deed they still didn’t have any interest in watching cartoons with their kids.   However, now a days parents, at least me, seem to be willing to watch cartoons because they can be somewhat amusing. What this does is opens up the advertising to someone who actually has the ability to do something necessary for advertising to be effective, purchase the product being touted.  Nerf machine guns, drink boxes with no nutritional value, cereal with more sugar per serving than a Milky Way candy bar, just think of the things my kids (and I ) would be missing out on if I didn’t love them and their shows enough to watch cartoons with them.