Cartoons Inspire Creativity

I was born in 1975. The 1980’s world of Saturday Morning Cartoons was a small window of time from 7:30 am until noon. I cannot express enough what an escape those few hours were for me. The fantasy worlds of Smurfs and Dungeon and Dragons and He-Man were a stark contrast to my world of school and parental domination. Typical childish thoughts, but from a young age I understood that there was something I didn’t understand.

I was different. I know people say they are different but I always felt like a stranger. My family didn’t connect with me and I didn’t connect with them. I knew how to act to make them happy but it was exhausting.

My schooling was very difficult. I was an outsider who was convinced he needed to be an insider. I’m pretty sure I had a mild Autism or a learning problem. Things just didn’t click with what my teachers said and what I comprehended. To make it worse my mother would regularly march up to the school with demands and concerns. This really helped to separate me internally within the school system by placing me in special testing, classes and attention that my classmates were immune from.

All I had to do was survive until Saturday. I had four hours of cartoons to help me escape into fantasy and stories that created an imaginary life I could use to get me through the following week.

So here I sit as a 46 year old adult, watching cartoons and drawing dragons to escape from my life.