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Tag: cartoon
Michael Ramirez Cartoons Are Back on Ricochet!
***Note: Due to time constraints, Michael has not been able to reliably post his latest cartoons on Ricochet. As his manager/publicist, I will be taking over that duty. His cartoons and essays are available at michaelramirez.substack.com, and most content is free, so sign up if you enjoy daily newsletter updates. Below is Sunday’s essay, along with the latest cartoon. I’ll be posting regularly, and Michael will comment when he can.
Taking the Intelligence out of Military Intelligence The most sophisticated advanced defense can be defeated if you can’t keep a secret.
Disney: Happy Black History Month, White America!
So, here we are again, Black History Month. Or as it could alternatively be called, White Demonization Month. Although, come to think of it, how is that different than any other month, or week, or day, in post-George Floyd America?
Oh well. I guess white people are just supposed to suck it up and penitently endure another beatdown over the sins for which they and apparently no one else on earth is guilty. Therefore, history gets twisted like a pretzel and the blatant demonization of whites for their skin color is relentless. And remember, in the woke religion there is no grace or forgiveness.
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RIP Stephen Hillenburg, Creator of ‘SpongeBob Squarepants’
Public reaction to the death of SpongeBob Squarepants creator Stephen Hillenburg, who died from ALS last Monday, might have confused those unfamiliar with his most famous work. Here was a man being mourned across all ages and demographics, from the trades to Twitter, for creating … a cartoon made and marketed for children?
But this gets SpongeBob, Hillenburg ’s magnum opus, all wrong. At its best, SpongeBob was not simply a kids’ cartoon. From the beginning, Hillenburg brought to the show a unique tone and aesthetic that drew from his background in marine biology. He attended the show’s pitch meeting in a Hawaiian shirt. SpongeBob, the relentlessly upbeat, cleaning utensil-shaped main character, lives in a pineapple under the sea; Squidward, his grouchy next-door cephalopod, inhabits an Easter Island head. And the opening theme song is sung by a portrait of a (human) pirate. Though a veteran of Rocko’s Modern Life, another successful Nickelodeon program, Hillenburg had something all his own in mind from the start.
The result of this tonal intentionality was, at its peak, a delightful, offbeat, and sometimes surreal mix of childish humor for its purported target audience, reinforced by subtle or obscure (though never tasteless) comedy for older viewers. “Help Wanted,” the first episode, which premiered on May 1, 1999 (and which I viewed then as a five-year-old), is a good example of this. On the surface, it is a silly story about a fruit-residing sponge who decides to apply for a job as a fry cook at the Krusty Krab, a fast food restaurant run by a miserly crab in his underwater hometown of Bikini Bottom, a place populated by other anthropomorphic aquatic creatures. Some puerile humor ensues; entering the restaurant, SpongeBob trips on an errant nail and proceeds to spend about a minute tripping, falling, and bouncing around. It’s very silly stuff; slapstick taken just up to the point of absurdity.
Alexandra DeSanctis of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are actually glad to see Sen. Kamala Harris and other national Democrats admitting they want single payer, government-run health care for everyone and they hope America is still ready to reject it. They also hammer radical activist Linda Sarsour for acting as if she’s raising money for hurricane victims when her real goal to build up the bank of her organization to foster division along ethnic, racial, and gender lines. They also pound Politico for a horrible political cartoon characterizing Texans as confederate, Christian rubes who should realize they are being rescued by government rather than God. And they close by shaking their heads at the cases of Americans who injured themselves by applying sunscreen directly to their eyeballs to look at the recent solar eclipse.