Joanna Peery     Stupid Like a Fox I should have known that it was only a matter of time before somebody got her undies in a bunch over South Park and other cartoons, and their supposed corruption of all that is good, holy, and animated in the U. S. of A. I'm sure that there may be some valid criticisms of such shows. But Mimi Waters presented nary a one in her Nov. 19 article in the CD, and in fact based most of her arguments on wholly false premises. I, too, would awaken at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning to stare at the rainbow stripes on the screen until the Jackson 5 reruns began. However, most of those beloved cartoons of our collective childhood were far from "unadulterated entertainment." Rather, they were thinly disguised thirty-minute commercials for stuffed toys and action figures, overwhelmingly inane and smarmy, and definitely not worthy of reverence. Same goes for the after-school cartoons. So I do not mourn the passing of The Snorks, nor the heady early days of The Monchichis. Not only do these cartoons of yore fail to stand as the bastion of decency and culture Miss Waters remembers, animation itself is hardly limited to such high-minded pursuits as Snow White. As long as animation has been around, there have been dirty cartoons (Fritz the Cat) and extremely violent ones (G.I. Joe). Step on South Park all you want. Naturally the social criticism is going to fly right over the heads of some literal-minded viewers who are unable to grasp the concept of Cartman's sexism being so obviously exaggerated as to be 1) unbelievable and 2) a comment on a society which still holds such ludicrous views. And, of course, some will miss the message of one episode in which the parents of South Park march to New York to protest an offensive cartoon (sound familiar?), leaving their children unsupervised. (Re: the kid who started a fire after watching Beavis and Butthead: How did a young child go unsupervised long enough to find matches and start a fire? And why was that child watching MTV in the first place? Where were his parents, who bear the real responsibility?) Here's my real problem, though. You do not, DO NOT, complain about The Simpsons. To do so only exposes your own ignorance of satire, and a lack of appreciation for the real Simpsons, which, while it gently pokes fun at every institution, ultimately carries a forgiving and uplifting message about small-town, nuclear-family life. If you can't see it, I suggest Paul Cantor's writings on the subject. Besides, no other show on television can throw around cultural references like The Simpsons; after all, these are Harvard grads we're dealing with. Indeed, the impact of The Simpsons is nothing to be sneered at; in its 9th (not 11th) season, it is still the most intelligent, most consistently amusing show around. Rather than sullying the reputation of animation, The Simpsons has lifted it far above moronic fare such as Jem and the Holograms and Q-Bert. Really, the source of the creeping idiocy which seems to be taking over the world, or at least the U.S., is Disney. Not only has the quality of the animation itself decreased, the movies are increasingly inaccurate and saccharine (Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame), perverting the stories on which they are based. So if Mimi Waters needs someone to blame for the "torn and tattered ghost" of integrity in the animated world, she needs look no further than Fashion Square Mall's own Disney store for the progeny of the biggest cash cow in history. At least South Park and The Simpsons retain their originality and biting wit, which is more than I can say for YOU, Mimi.

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