by Beau Smith

As many of you know, I’m not one who favors the ways of the extreme politically correct world. The ways of the Extreme PC world are just as bad and destructive as those of the extreme politically incorrect world. Too much of either is a bad thing.

I favor common sense and strong parenting. My parents were great believers in common sense and they taught it to me and my brothers and sisters pretty good. None of us ended up as serial killers or on wanted posters in the post office, at least not yet.

I tried to do the same with my boys. They’ve all grown up to do good and to be honest, they didn’t do half the terrible things I did. So I’m pleased and proud of em’. My youngest son, Nick, was born in 1983. I have to say that the early 80s were a terrible time for Saturday morning cartoons. When he got old enough and started paying attention to them I found that the TV landscape was littered with unmanly cartoons that had more sweetness than a box of Trix cereal with a side order of glazed doughnuts. There were The Smurfs (more subversive crap from the French), My Little Pony, Care Bears, Teddy Ruxpin (more evil than Chucky), and other cartoons that almost make me throw up just mentioning their names.

Now I realize that some of you younger folks grew up watching G.I. Joe, He-Man, and Transformers. They were better than the cuddly stuff that I mentioned above, but they weren’t close to being truly manly. The cartoons I’m gonna school you on today would never have those G.I. Joe “After School Special” moments to tell you how to be nice to your neighbor. He-Man always let Skeletor go and what was with that annoying Orko? Same to be said about Thundercats. It was like watching westerns where the good guy always shoots the gun out of the bad guy’s hand. They also had those little “Hallmark” moments telling you to brush your teeth and don’t spit on the sidewalk. Don’t let the innocence of childhood cloud your mind, these were not manly cartoons. They were the closest thing you had, but they weren’t close enough.

I decided right then that Nick was gonna be exposed to some manly cartoons that wouldn’t have him out hugging trees or carrying a sign that said “Free Willie”. So I gathered up a bunch of VHS tapes full of the good stuff. The stuff I grew up on. If being a parent is being a role model, then I was gonna be at the front of the line.

I wanted him to watch cartoons that not only dealt with good vs. evil, but showed how to do it in a manly fashion and carved a clear path to keeping bad guys from committing that crime twice.

Here are a few of the essential manly cartoons that were loaded into my old VCR:

Jonny Quest: The original Jonny Quest, not that sugar coated-sissy CGI stuff that came out later. This was the Jonny Quest that ran from 1964 to ‘65. This show had everything a young boy could relate to; explosions, machine guns, laser beams, karate chops, evil foreign guys running and screaming for their lives as Race Bannon (Jonny Quest’s bodyguard) threw all kinds of hurt at ‘em. It was nothing to see Jonny Quest clobber a bad guy over the head with board (with a nail in it) or even rapid fire a grease gun at ‘em. That was my dream as a 12 year old kid, to fire a machine gun at international spies and monsters.

Jonny’s best friend Hadji was no slouch either. He always had some tricks in that turban he wore. He could charm snakes and wasn’t above instructing an elephant to crush the bad guys while they were still in their getaway car.

Jonny’s dog Bandit was always getting them into messes, but when the chips were down you could depend on him to bite the bad guy on the butt and make him howl. Dr. Quest didn’t do much of the fighting with his fists, but he was always there to build the laser beam or bomb that Race needed to even the odds against an evil army of way too many bad guys. Plus, he was the envy of all evil mad scientists that tried to over throw the world. They were always trying to kill him.

The original Jonny Quest was one of the greatest cartoons ever. It had it all; death, destruction, real mystery, intrigue, science, kids being part of it without being too much of the center of attention, and good animation. Some of the episodes were absolute classics: the Yeti, the German WWI ace in the Andes, the big ugly creature on the ship, werewolves, and Dr. Syn’s robotic spider.

From a kid’s point of view, the storylines were great and easily the most exciting thing for any kid to watch. Jonny was a kid who got to travel around the world and kick bad guy butt. What little kid wouldn’t love that?

The original cartoon with Race, Dr. Quest, and Hadji was a huge dose of honesty shunned by today’s P.C. world. When the WWI fighter, complete with monocle and scar on face, crashed into the side of the mountain in a flaming heap, Race looked Jonny square in the eye and said “That’s a horrible way to die Jonny, but he deserved it”. Race didn’t hold back any punches and I’ll bet he cussed like a sailor off camera. Race was John Wayne, James Bond, and Kenneth Tobey all rolled into one man.

Two scenes stood out in the series and would never make it onto any kind of children’s programming today, or in the future. The first was when CIA agent and Dr. Quest protector, Race Bannon, is in Hong Kong to meet a contact to pump them for some information. The contact is a hot Chinese babe who invites him back to her private boat to discuss the info he needs. Cut to the Jonny/Hadji/Bandit storyline for a scene. Cut to the Dr. Quest for a moment. Go to commercial. When we come back, Race’s “informant” is standing near him wearing a robe while he is sitting on the corner of her bed putting his boots on. He thanks her for the information and leaves. Even at a young age I knew that Race had just “pumped ”her for all the info he needed to get the job done. Jonny couldn’t have a better role model and neither could I.

The next classic scene was when Race’s plane goes down over the jungle and they all have to parachute out. When they land on the jungle floor and are trying to gather themselves up, a pissed off panther finds them. Bandit starts barking, the Panther growls ready to attack and Race yells to everyone not to move. Race raises his rifle, fires off a shot, and the Panther slumps to the ground, apparently dead. When Jonny starts to walk toward the panther Race yells. “Wait! He may not be dead yet.” Then he puts another round into the panther, which kinda shudders again, bleeds, then dies. Can any of you name another cartoon that kills off a pissed off endangered animal and doesn’t end up with PETA on their back trying to get the show axed? The cool 60’s jazz like score to the show was great, and the opening credits were wonderful. Without a doubt, Race Bannon is a Testosterone God!

If they ever decide to do a movie or grown up Jonny Quest adventure I sure hope he has all the manly ways of Race Bannon and the brains of Dr. Quest. Throw the PC book out the window and take off the dress. It’s time to man up!

Another Hanna-Barbera manly cartoon that I added to Nick’s must see list was The Herculoids. There was the family of Zandor, a great testosterone butt kicking warrior; his hottie wife and damsel in distress, Tarra; and their son, Dorno. And then there were their animal/creature posse; Igoo the giant Rock Ape, Gloop and Gleep the shape changing glob creatures, Tundro the rhino like creature that shot explosive fire balls from his horn, and Zok the flying dragon like creature that fired laser beams from his eyes and tail. They were incredible.

Each of the creatures stood out from the other pets/sidekick/creatures from other cartoons. They were mean and you never wanted to get them pissed off. The writers and animators showed this with the characters. If you saw one episode of The Herculoids, you knew you didn’t want to ever mess with them.

Zandor ran such a tight ship that he even had son Dorno call him and his mom by their first names. There’s respect for youth.

One of my favorite scenes that sums up the attitude of the whole show and the manly era was when Zandor and the Herculoids just finished fighting off and crushing a huge army of flying robots, and I mean thousands of them. The crushed parts of the robots littered the huge countryside of the planet as far as the eye could see. Dorno looks up to Zandor and says “ What do we do with all these robots, Zandor?” Zandor looks out over the mess of ruined metal and replies “ Let nature claim them. They will be a warning to all others that seek to invade our planet.” That was a great “up yours” to every recyclin’, Greenpeace lovin’, tree squeezin’, global warmin’, wimp that ever wanted to throw himself in front of a baby seal.

Other manly Hanna-Barbera cartoons that I would suggest are:

Space Ghost (The original series): Much like The Herculoids, Space Ghost took no prisoners, at least not without busting them up pretty good first. In one episode a really nasty bad guy met his death in a terrible atom smashing way at the hands of Space Ghost. Jayce, one of Space Ghost’s kid sidekicks, asked if that was the right thing to do. Space Ghost places his hand on Jayce’s shoulder and says “He got what he deserved. Now, have you done that homework yet?” Yeah, I’d say that was motivation to study harder.

Shazzan: In 1967 this giant genie made the 60s cartoon scene with his kid sidekicks Chuck, Nancy and the flying goofy camel Kaboobie. Chuck and Nancy would always get in over their heads with some Arab bad guys or magic masters. They each had rings that fit together and would summons Shazzan the giant genie. The reason this cartoon was so good was because Shazzan never lost or even came close to losing. Granted, there wasn’t much suspense in that, but that’s not why you watched it. You watched it to see just how bad Shazzan would humiliate and pummel the screaming bad guy with the funny accent.

Shazzan had a voice that was a cross between Sean Connery and Ted Cassidy. He laughed all the time as he beat the butt of the bad guy. Shazzan was one sadistic son of a gun who truly enjoyed terrorizing the bad guy. He usually drug the butt whuppin’ out too. He either left the bad guy dead or put him in such a horrifying situation that the bad guy begged to be killed. It was some sick stuff when you really think about it , but I loved it.

Frankenstein Jr.: Much like Shazzan only a little nicer. This is a good prelim for younger kids before you expose em’ to Shazzan, “the laughing back hand of desert justice”. Although if you really pay close attention you’ll see that even Frankenstein Jr. could get a little sadistic as well. His kid sidekick was a real brat who really egged Frankie Jr. to put the big hurt on bad guys.

Birdman: Much like Space Ghost in the fact that he was not to be messed with. His only weakness was not getting enough solar rays made him weak. Even without the power bands, Space Ghost was nobody’s bitch. Birdman was a grim, no-nonsense guy. His sidekick the eagle/falcon was one nasty bird. It would just as soon sink its talons into you as look at you. Bad guys were nothing but cheap birdseed to him.

The Fantastic Four: The Hanna Barbera version was the best. Bad guys got punished and The THING was a scream. Great character stuff here.

The Galaxy Trio: More space butt-kicking with no remorse. They even had the great Ted Cassidy (Lurch) doing one of the voices.

Dino Boy: Dino Boy and Ugg the Caveman had great adventures with wonderful monsters and dinosaurs. Ugg was a real silent strong kinda father figure for Dino Boy. There was a lot of bad guy death in this cartoon.

Without a doubt, Hanna-Barbera cornered the market on testosterone heroes in cartoons. This is the same studio that gave us great kid stuff like The Jetsons, The Flintstones, Huckleberry Hound, Atom Ant, The Impossibles, Magilla Gorilla and so many more. You can’t go wrong with showing your kid a Hanna-Barbera cartoon from the 60s. My son Nick thanks me all the time and we still sit now and then and watch ‘em. He’s 28 years old now and has most of them on tape or DVD.

Nick is a fine upstanding young man that I’m very proud of. I thank all the folks at Hanna-Barbera for helping making him the fine young man he is today. I’m pretty sure that one day when he has kids that he is gonna dust off those Hanna-Barbera DVDs and tapes and raise his kids right.

Go and find some of these great cartoons and share them with your kid. If you don’t have any kids, then watch em’ yourself. You’ll be a better man for it. For you women, it’ll help you understand a real man better and appreciate him.

Your amigo,

Beau Smith

The Flying Fist Ranch

www.flyingfistranch.com