Whoah,
this simply has to be the most amazing children's show I've ever seen. Claymation kids meet SATAN!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqi5F5MqqTQIt's disturbing as I'll get out - maybe something most suitable for Halloween - but I would
absolutely recommend that kids watch this. Taken at face value in an areligious context, it is a statement on the wrongness of exercising control over the lives of others, and the wrongness of not valuing the lives and spirit of conscious beings. If I were to examine this in a religious context, I would say that it's a very compelling example of some Gnostic arguments according to which the God of the Old Testament is a being of evil and not a force for good. Not that I'm advocating such a belief here - I won't go into my own convoluted views on that subject here, that sort of thing is for the religion thread - but a study of Gnosticism is great as an intellectual exercise and for developing greater commitment to personal values, regardless of what your worldview is.
The fact that I'd make my kids watch this and write a thesis on it is proof that I should never be a parent. I'd have to balance this out with lots of
Thunder Cats or
Ninja Turtles. EDIT: A kind soul at Youtube has informed me that there's way more -- it's from a show called
The Adventures of Mark Twain. It was done in the 80s -- one of the finest creative phases in Western pop culture, IMO. I've
so got to get a keg of beer and watch this from beginning to end some day. But that's
after we finish the Chrono Cross file structure project and the Chrono Trigger tile insertion tutorial. Which will coincidentally require more kegs of beer.
I'm such a horrible role model.
