Parenting quid pro quo

I never thought I would grow up to have to limit my son’s viewing of superhero cartoons. I’ve always loved superhero cartoons, even the crappy ones of my youth. God, even Clutch Cargo was willfully endured, as creepy as it was.



And I loved the Thunderbirds.



Supermarionation® was a big improvement to my way of thinking. The opposite of Clutch Cargo, everything moved but the lips. If you’ve seen Team America, you’ve seen Supermarionation® at work.

But the cartoons of today are such a huge improvement over those of my childhood. Every cool superhero has its own cartoon—Batman, Iron Man, the Avengers (the Superhero Squad)—and they’re all first-rate operations. Iron Man is especially brilliant:



This is the Iron Man cartoon I had as a kid:



So you can imagine, I hate to deny my boy the same content I was denied as a child. Even second-rate efforts from a “creative” group that goes by the name of “Man of Action” like Ben 10 and Generator Rex. It must be wired into the DNA. But he’s become way too dependent on them. His art production has slowed to a crawl and when he’s not bugging his mom to play video games on her phone, he’s pestering me to watch superhero cartoons.

So today I decided on a quid pro quo that we could both live with. Anytime he wants to watch a superhero cartoon now, we will first watch together something that I think he ought to see. On the new plan’s inaugural run tonight, we watched Where Did You Sleep Last Night from Nirvana Unplugged; Alan Parker’s The Wall, from Comfortably Numb to Run Like Hell, then Radio Gaga by Queen from Wembley Stadium.



We talked about all the bands as they came along. We talked about Nazism and fascism during The Wall, and rock godhood during the Queen number.

Then we switched to the barely watchable Ben 10 and I excused myself to the kitchen to make his dinner.

I have lots of great music on DVD. Next up? Maybe Stairway… from Led Zeppelin’s BBC sessions. Or almost anything from U2’s ZOOTV tour. Definitely some Steve Goodman from Austin City Limits. The nice thing about excellent music is, like cartoon superheroes, there is a practically inexhaustible supply.

I gotta find Nine Inch Nails from Woodstock 94. Bet it’s on the YouTube. The Boy is going to love it! It almost makes Ben 10 worth it.