Cohibas and Cartoons

Posted By on May 10, 2011

It’s about damn time it starts getting nice outside becasue this winter has lasted WAY too long.  Global warming eh Al?  You arrogant douche bag.  We can finally stay outside long enough to finish an entire cigar without getting cold fingers or needing to wear a stocking hat so that should make you all happy little campers.  Oh yeah, and that means the girls are getting out their summer wardrobes, yummy.  Shortie shorts and tank tops…………sorry, had to wipe some drool off my keyboard.  My one track mind is easily thrown off task by the thoughts of cigars, girls, booze and cartoons.  That’s right, I said cartoons.  Big whoop, wanna fight about it?  Don’t you remember as a kid waking up early on Saturdays and planting your ass in front of the boob tube for a entire morning with nothing but a huge bowl of sugar coated cereal  and your animated buddies?  Those were some good times.

Long before becoming the immature close to adult height man that I am, I was a cartoon fanatic that looked forward to my Saturday mornings more than a middle aged shut in living in his parents basement looks forward to the next Harry Potter movie.  Hell, if it wasn’t for the informational tid-bits I learned from School House Rock, I’d still have no clue what a “conjunction” is.  Me loving television comes as no surprise to you guys as I’ve repeatedly told you about my penchant for wasting hour upon hour in  front of it.  Saturday cartoons is how this all started.  That fact that I watched piles of cartoons is nofredcigart critical but what is important is that I didn’t mail away for Acme rocket skates, jump off a roof with an umbrella or throw and anvil on somebody although I know many people who deserved it.  Yet mothers with nothing better to do with their day claim that seeing a cartoon character smoke will make children want to smoke.  Wait, what?  Are you freaking serious.

Sure there is a history of famous cartoon characters who occasionally had a cigar in tow but it was never glorified in anyway, that I recall, and was always less prominently featured than many comic book characters who were never drawn without a cigar in hand .  Blaming Fred Flintstone for my smoking would be like blaming Bugs Bunny for somebody being a racist.  Remember some of the stuff Looney Tunes did with Native American and Asians?  That unfortunately was the culture of the time and cartoons simply reflected those sentiments.  Right or wrong that’s what is was and cigars and tobacco were also part of our culture so it was reflected in our favorite hand drawn figures.

Showing my favorite animated icon with a stogie never made me want to take up cigar smoking because as a kid I realized it was simply a type of prop that someone had decided that that specific character should have.  Do tom-and-jerry-cigaryou remember Rocky the gangster from Looney Tunes with his imbecile sidekick Mugsy?  Rocky always had a cigar or cigarette dangling from his jaw as he delivered his tough guys lines like Edward G. Robinson only to be foiled by Bugs in the end.  I didn’t want to become a gangster because of him and there was always lots of shooting guns at each other and jamming unsuspecting victims into hot ovens but I never tried to do those things either.  I remember cigars being used  to designate High Society  fat cats or the well to do because it seemed as though is was something only the rich did to unwind.  Heck, even Tom and Jerry had it right in one of their episodes as they kicked back in a limo enjoying some finally aged Cubans, no doubt on the way to or from a high class black tie affair.   That would be my guess.

 Now that I think about it, seeing a mouse and a cat chilling out in the luxurious confines of  a stretch limousine with spats and cigars may have given me a small desire to live that highfalutin lifestyle just a little bit.  How can you not want to enjoy an afternoon like that, I mean fox-cigarlook at those two!

 The PC police have tried hard to shelter the impressionable young minds of our future by striving to eliminate all smoking references in any type of media be it cartoons, comic books or movies.  The never ending attempt to eradicate smoking from our lives is taken to extreme by these do-gooders who apparently had such miserable child-hoods that they don’t recall the fun times they should have enjoyed in front of the big 28 inch screen of our youth watching non-stop mind numbing animated characters smash, bash chase and smoke their way into our hearts.  If your child can’t tell the difference between a cartoon and reality, then you might as well get them fitted for a paper hat and point him to the nearest Taco Bell because having high hopes for your precious dim wit is a waste of time.  They are FREAKIN cartoons and are responsible for nothing more than maybe teaching me some Spanish from Speedy Gonzales.

 We’ve got much bigger problems in this country to contend with than seeing a fake wolf in a top hat smoke a cigar so lets get our priorities back in order and start worrying about things that are actually proven to have lasting devastating effects on children: Hanna Montanna.  Of course it’s just my opionion that cartoons do not influence our lives and if you do not agree with me, you can bite my shiny metal ass.

The Cigar Soldier.

About the author

The Cigar Soldier is the founding father and President of The Brotherhood of the Leaf, an internet community of cigar enthusiasts and Northeast Wisconsin’s only true membership based cigar club. As the main writer for Cigar Night Online.com, his rants can sting, stir or inspire your emotions, as he leaves no topic of enjoying the cigar lifestyle off his hit list.

Comments

One Response to “Cohibas and Cartoons”

  1. Anonymous says:

    Do you guys have a wine club?

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