What Show IS This?!

When I was a kid, my parents wanted to approve everything I watched. We had neighbors who told us that Harry Potter would send you to Hell. Mom didn’t quite believe that, but she thought dark cartoons were linked to bad behavior. Given my penchant for dark cartoons, I tried to hide my viewing as much as possible.

On this particular day, Mom came home early and caught me watching a show I knew she would never approve of. Most episodes had murder or gore, so I knew I was going to get in trouble, but I didn’t say anything because I wanted one last hurrah.

To my extreme luck, the episode being shown was the Friendship Episode. You know, that stereotypical episode in every cartoon where they fight about something ridiculous and spend the episode resolving it and talking about how much they love each other.

Mom approved it with flying colors. She praised the cartoon for showing good relationship dynamics in a world filled with violence and sex. The very next episode, which she didn’t watch, had a person being burned to death.

And that’s the story of how dark cartoons led me to a life of crime… in my writing, at least!