Perchance to Write a Cartoon

I've almost come to the conclusion that at one time mental patients were in charge of developing cartoon programming. I know what you are going to say; you are going to tell me that I should not watch certain shows if they are so offensive. And you are probably right. However, in my defense I will say that I watch cartoons because everything else on TV is far crappier - well maybe except for this. Well with that said, I'll tell you about an experience I had watching the Boomerang Network last night.

So I was watching Boomerang late last night and they happened to be showing one of those Superman cartoons that I would imagine was made during the 60s or 70s. (I did my research, and it was actually made during the 60s.) The title of the show was "The Wisp of Wickedness," and in the show some sort of evil mist comes from outer space and inhabits a hat. At least three different people put on this hat, and it causes them to do evil things. And this makes sense because one would expect that a hat inhabited by an evil mist would make good people do evil things. Also, one would fully expect that any sensible person, when finding a hat just lying on the ground would certainly don the hat irrespective of the hat's history. (It makes one pine for the days of the 1960s when evidently such things as head lice did not exist...) I mean, if I found a hat lying on the ground I would certainly wear it because of even the small chance that I can turn into a living snowman by doing so. That's always been my dream.

Getting back to the actual plot of the show, once Superman finds out that people are mysteriously doing evil things, he goes into action. He discovers that the hat must have been the source of the evil and manages to separate the hat from the evil mist. At this time I would like to point out that it was a good thing that Superman encountered this evil hat while Superman rather than Clark Kent. Again, it is clear from this show that during the 60s, no one could resist wearing a hat found lying on the ground. We can only assume that Superman was able to resist because that particular hat just would not have gone well with his blue body-length tights and red briefs. If Clark Kent had found the hat, I'm sure we would have seen a plot play out in this cartoon very similar to the one that played out a decade and a half later in Superman III.

When Superman discovers that it is the mist that has caused the hat to be evil, he realizes that he cannot actually grasp the mist, but he uses his very advanced scientific knowledge to realize that since this mist is a vapor, it can be frozen. (The process is called deposition.) And so Superman uses his freezing breath to freeze the evil mist and then throws the now solid mist into outer space, never to threaten to inhabit innocent Earth bound hats again.

Great stuff that is, but extremely contradictory. If Superman was able to use his freezing breath to freeze this mist on Earth, then how in blazes was this mist not frozen when it was initially in space? I know that Superman has an awesome freezing breath, but he cannot possibly freeze something better than the vacuum of space that has a temperature of 2.725 Kelvin - close to absolute zero. Also, while it's great that Superman was able to throw the frozen mist into outer space, and while this means that he could be an excellent starting pitcher for either the Mets or Yankees (particularly since he does not have a fatigued right groin), since Superman was not in the vacuum of space when he threw the frozen mist, the frictional energy caused by the drag of the atmosphere certainly would have sublimated the frozen solid back into mist. Sorry hats; you still must beware...

Great job there out of the writers...