"I am the great Cornholio!"

Comedy Central has been bringing me back a decade every night lately.

They've been playing old episodes of Beavis and Butthead. Everyone either loved or hated that show. Back when they were huge my mother was dating a man with two sons my age, so I had to love it or I'd have gone insane. I'm not sure why those two cartoon idiots grew on me so much. I suppose for one, they reminded me of so many guys I knew. Secondly, I was 13 years old and stuck in a small town where so many of the people seemed like caricatures in my angsty-pissy teenage mind. Also, it spawned a nickname for me that stuck for years.

Those two morons made me laugh, and they still do. I don't think that makes me immature. There's just something stupidly funny about Butthead turning "Worker's Compensation" into "Worker's Constipation." I still think they're funny-- just not necessarily to the point I did at 13, when everything was a possible sexual innuendo-- especially hanging out with boys most of the time.

So I point to today's cartoons and the uproar over "Family Values." I find it amusing. I'm proof that a kid can grow up steeped in relatively stupid, violent cartoons and be fine. I watched Beavis and Butthead play frog baseball, start fires, accidentally poison themselves with bug spray, play with chainsaws and beat on each other-- but I never got into any trouble. Every kid is different, but with some attention paid to what they are consuming off of the Great Glass Babysitter it conceivably should be ok. I'd also like to note that educational or historical shows shouldn't be ignored. Not only because they are interesting, but because they can prepare you to be unstoppable at Trivial Pursuit later in life.

Obviously I'm not saying all kids should have unlimited, unsupervised access to television... I just don't think it should be a scapegoat. If people must protest something for their children (younger and older,) might I suggest they give SpongeBob and South Park a break and try unfair school funding in urban areas, gender stereotyping in grade school, low pay for teachers or restricted access to honest sex education?

Speaking of tv controversies, may I never hear of the Superbowl Nipplegate Crisis ever again. I can't believe that still comes up. I still blame MTV for that overwhelming shitstorm.





(Once in a while I miss the late nights of gorging on MTV, though. Excuse me while I shed a tear over the downfall of oldschool Music TeleVision...I used to love you! Now... I can't bear to watch.)