Cartoon Classic: The Angry Beavers!

This was one of my childhood favourites, I cannot help but be reminded of the movie Dumb and Dumber too, all lost in the nostalgia of childhood sodas and coco pops. This  classic episode is entitled "Food of the Clods" which perfectly captures that feeling, when you just don't want to go to sleep! The night is ours!

ps. if you have a favourite cartoon you want to talk about or just watch, let us know at jezerfunhouse@hotmail.com

World Malaria Day 2011

Approximately half of the world's population is at risk of malaria. The theme of the fourth World Malaria Day - Achieving Progress and Impact - heralds the international community's renewed efforts to make progress towards zero malaria deaths by 2015.

Here is a short cartoon about treating malaria which is also inadvertently funny:

Here are 10 tips to prevent malaria courtesy of http://doctor.ndtv.com:

1. Avoid mosquito bites by wearing protective clothing over the arms and legs, using mosquito nets and screens, and insect repellents (cream, lotion, spray or vaporizer).
2. Anti-malarial drugs can be prescribed for visitors to areas where malaria is prevalent. Treatment should begin two weeks before entering the area, and continued for 4 weeks after leaving the area.
3. Sleep in rooms that are properly screened with gauze over the windows and doors. There should be no holes in the gauze and no unscreened entry points to the room. Air-conditioned rooms are good, too.
4. Wear light colours while going out afternoon as light colours are less attractive to mosquitoes.
5. Use bednets when sleeping in areas infested with mosquitoes.
6. Use insecticides and flying insect sprays to reduce the number of mosquitoes in areas where you will be spending a significant amount of time.
7. When possible, avoid camping or spending prolonged amounts of time in areas where standing water is present.
8. Keep pots and pans emptied of water. Open vessels for drinking water should be covered. Mosquitoes use areas of standing water to lay their eggs.
9. If you know you will be traveling in areas where malaria is prevalent, ask your doctor for anti-malarial drugs.
10. Pregnant women should avoid travelling to malarious regions as it increases the risk of abortion, premature birth, still-birth and maternal death.

A Brief History of the Evolution of Psychedelic Cartoons

Since the advent of the colouring pencil, perhaps even before, cartoons and narcotics have gone hand in hand.

As we can see from this mild example Betty Boop and a clown become hysteric due to laughing gas, this cartoon was later banned and perhaps this repression sewed the seeds for later drug-laced cartoons. In the next clip we see the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland an opium icon.

All this and the Sixties were yet to happen, the tripped out minds of a generation had failed to be influenced. I only intend to give you a snippet of the evolution of cartoon-narcotics because the spectrum is so broad and colourful, that an opiatic haze is the best impression one can inspect without a great deal of digging. I only have a trowel so this will have to suffice. 

For those of us who grew up with Ren and Stimpy even as our burgeoning child brains rolled and rippled as our gyri and sulci took shape, we could not help but cast some thoughts of introspection and wonder about the content of such a cartoon and consider how the mind-altered states the characters exhibited altered the state of our minds as they developed along Piagetian and Vygostkian highways. 

Eventually these minds grew up and some of them began to flex their creative cartoon muscles, and although the following two shows are less about the taking of drugs and more about the creative process that ensues. This cartoon was clearly drawn by the shaky hand of the junky and imagined by an LSD-soaked mind.

Enjoy the rage rainbow!!