I remember growing up watching He-Man, GI Joe, and a variety of other cartoons that always ended with a moral lesson. Now children of today not only lack that moral lesson, but get bombarded with absolute stupidity (Sponge Bob, Ed, Edd, and Eddie and a whole host of others) not to mention Earthism (Pokemon) and other destructive im_morals. Even in the old TV shows like _Andy Griffith, the old Westerns, Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons and many of the Family shows of the 80's there were moral lessons in each episode. Good grief! Even Archie Bunker in his loud-mouthed way railed about the dangers of government.

Tom and Jerry excursion into classic piano, was great. But the best short was the storm from William Tell by Rossini. Mickey is the conductor and as the music gets wilder so does the storm until it is tossing the musicians around. And let's not forget Fantasia. I wound up buying recordings of every piece in that film, and had dinosaurs tromping through my head via Rite of Spring

There are few contemporary series on the air that provide pro-free market, pro-individual liberty moral lessons. Star Trek (the original series) was a good series, in part, because it did.
Babylon Five was another superb series that
was an entertaining moral lesson in the entire 5 year arc without statist propaganda bias.
There is a very good current series from Canada Broadcasting, (available in the US by subscription through Acorn tv or by using a vpn) that I recommend highly for moral lessons, praise to productive inventors, scientific ingenuity, and imaginative entertainment: The Murdoch Mysteries. (The writers even manage to convey progress of women's suffrage without insulting biased feminist attitudes so prevalent in US programming.)

Up until now, I haven't watched a Warner Brothers cartoon since the early 60s, no, the late 50s, I think.
I recall during the 50s, I recall a cartoon festival where the admission was a can of food for the poor and that theater was loaded with kiddies watching back-to-back Warner Brothers.
Later on during the 60s I did watch some Bullwinkle, The Flintstones and The Jetsons, the latter two prime time, I think.
Oh, yeah, animated Peanuts and Christmas specials also.

We got such good messages, from TV, cartoons and comic books - Classics Illustrated. We learned to love our country, respect our parents, want to grow up and work! Welfare and subsidies did not exist, not even in cartoons. TV shows like "Route 66" gave us characters like Buz who was into personal responsibility and tough love. The show centered itself around worrking class people. Of course, in Chicago style, Me TV has taken the reruns off in favor of ALF and Mama's Family! Even Brit TV gave us the Avengers, with a smart and self-reliant lead in Emma Peel, long before our idiot feminist got in the act. Comedians knew they were entertainers, many were war veterans, and they knew their role was to entertain, not be nasty political hacks. Daniel Boone gave us s coexisting races respecting each other and working hard to support their families. Today we have immature parents being run by out of control kids as the basis of the TV sitcoms, blacks making idiots of themselves in the same genre. Obnoxious carton characters act as political pundits. Schools don't try to rasie people up, but to make them dome down until all are dumb. Blacks used to speak perfect English in my school, today, they can't pronounce common words correctly, but teachers think they are honoring their roots! The cowboy shows always ended with a message from the lead to be good little buckaroos and respet teir parents. One of my fondest memories is seeing Gene Autry in person with my grandpa.

and today they contend that there is no influence behind TV and cartoons while everything and anything TV is flooded with not-so-subtle social statements, usually contrary to parents values.

I'd say Ironman and Captain America added more to my youthful morality and work ethic than anything else..including my hippie parents. Today I wouldn't recommend comics or any TV cartoon for kids..mind mush drivel indoctrinating children while mom and/or dad get me-time.

Loved Johnny Quest (never cared for He-Man)

Annie Holmquist has the cart before the horse: she misunderstands cause and effect. The cartoons of the times were just a medium of expression, as were films, or television. They only presented what people wanted to see.

The cartoons referenced in the article in particular were not intended for children. They were fillers for feature presentations of cinema at movie theaters. They were amusement for adults. However, as Ayn Rand cogently pointed out, every work of art presents a philosophy. I can only recommend that anyone who is interested in the aesthetics of theater read The Romantic Manifesto. Ayn Rand would have classified those cartoons as "bootleg romanticism" a "depths at their heights" delivery of the best people knew vaguely that they needed and enjoyed.

You can get the same sense of life - and the same intellectual entendres - from good Hollywood films of the 1940s and 50s. Kathryn Hepburn's monologue at the climax of The Desk Set is a string of literary allusions. But all is not lost... How about the dialog on starting sentences with conjunctions from Finding Forrester?

We still enjoy watching West Wing episodes because it was a show about writers for writers. The dialog includes very many tidbits of information - and some interesting errors, just to see if you are paying attention...

Is anyone familiar with the original Transformers 2-parter Megatron's Master Plan, where the Autobots were court ordered to effectively go Galt? I can just picture John's face hearing that sentence.

I love old cartoons!

I recently ran across the old Westinghouse Studio One tv shows from the 1950s on Amazon Fire. Terrible copies but the two subjects I came across were the stories of John Peter Zinger, touting the free speech issue in the 1740s and one on James Otis and the Writs of Assistance issue in 1761. One starred Charleton Heston. Neither would be shown today, too much reality for the public to deal with. But it does affirm that producers, in those days, were aware of the importance of telling those stories for the elucidation of the public to the historical foundations of what we are (and should be) Just found them on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDGIg... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpdQ6...

JUST FABULOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THANK YOU.

Thanks Carl,
All that I've read of Annie Holmquists articles have been thought provoking . With grandchildren as overnight guests some exploration of cartoons has found some good ones. Baby Einstein has classical music and fine art incorporated in their tales.
Mr Peabody was a blast from the past.