Artax, PLEASE!

The other day at approximately 3am I was lounging around in my underwear eating an Otter Pop -- my default state as of late -- and watching the Last Unicorn when I started thinking about how much children's movies have changed over the last twenty years.  This wasn't the first time I'd considered it...last July I had a brief fling with the Land Before Time and cried my face off from the time Little Foot's mother bit the dust at the jaws of a killer T-Rex until the ending credits rolled.  And the other night...well.  Maybe it was Mia Farrow's signature melancholy whine, maybe it was that gypsy witch shrieking as the Harpy ate her like a flesh-snack, it could've been the utterance of words like "Damn" and "Hell" in what was thought of as a kid's movie back then, things that would NEVER happen in today's politically correct film industry for tykes.  It just made me think-  God.  They sure don't make movies how they used to.  And we were tough little jerks back then. 

My parents smoked in the house...as a result I had asthma as a kid which makes me cackle now.  Baahaha.  And I always reeked like cigarette smoke.  I never had a protective sunscreen in the car or a kid leash.  I owned a Slip 'n Slide.  I played outside.  I cruised full speed down our cracked and bumpy sidewalk with no helmet, even crashing into a moving car one time, so afraid my mom would kick my ass for acting like such a little jerk that I went right home and didn't tell her a goddamn thing, just sat on the couch frozen in fear pretending to watch the Rescuers Down Under until the owner of the car came by to let my mom know about the accident that had just occurred.  I didn't even CARE about the Rescuers Down Under. 

So today I came across this article which made me say, "Hey!" out loud, because it was so similar to what I'd been thinking about lately.

"Kids today are entertained by talking toys, floating houses and adorable robots. What did we get when we were kids? DEATH, that's what.

Sure, "Up"'s widower backstory is a bummer, but it's nothing like the animal brutality of some classic flicks. You could bet if there was an animal involved in a movie, it was going to end up pumped full of lead. "All Dogs Go to Heaven" wasn't just a movie -- it was a rule. If "Air Bud" had come out in 1986, he would be slam-dunking the dirt instead of playing soccer in a straight-to-video sequel."

http://www.lemondrop.com/2009/06/11/the-11-saddest-animal-movie-deaths-of-all-time/?icid=main|aim|dl5|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lemondrop.com%2F2009%2F06%2F11%2Fthe-11-saddest-animal-movie-deaths-of-all-time%2F