Letter to President Obama #40 | Subject: Cartoons

Dear President Obama,

In my experience, cartoons are quite effective when selling things to children, but the U.S. government's record on utilizing cartoons as an educational tool is mixed, at best. There have been notable successes-- perennial favorites like Smokey Bear and Woodsy Owl and "Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute" campaign.

Nevertheless, there have been failures--for instance, thanks to the McGruff "Take a Bite Out of Crime" campaign, I'm always tempted to bite criminals when I see them. I'll admit that if everyone in society bit criminals, that would be a pretty good deterrent, but as far as I know, I was the only one to do this, and I got a big old black eye for my trouble.

To be fair, the private sector has had failures too. For instance, every time I think of Trix, I think of a bunch of kids starving a rabbit. Animal cruelty rarely makes me think of breakfast, that's for sure.

In any case, many governmental organizations don't have cartoon campaigns at all! This seems like a glaring error, as that means there are no cartoon ambassadors for the military. Of course, because we're talking national defense, we'd want to promote two different ideas at the same time--one, that the U.S. is a rational and diplomatic nation, and two, that the U.S. is fully prepared to defend herself when necessary. This would require a good-cop, bad-cop sort of set up.

The good cop could be First Sargent Friendly from "your Department of Defense" and he'd be kind, generous, and willing to listen. His bad-cop pal would be a pro-wrestler-sized-commando simply referred to as "the Department of Offense." We could then show First Sargent Friendly cordially talking to our would-be-enemy and being really diplomatic about things, listening to our enemy's reasoning and arguments intently, getting him a cup of coffee, and always quick to proffer a compromise solution that works for all parties. When this appears ineffective, Friendly perserveres, while quickly glancing at his watch and taking note of the time; while Friendly's still talking, The Department of Offense is slowly climbing up the ropes of the ring. (Oh, I forgot to mention, for this episode, they just happen to be next to a wrestling ring in a stadium with a capacity crowd.)

If Friendly doesn't reach a conclusion in time, he'll quickly step out of the way as the Dept. of Offense leaps down, and WHAMMO, our enemy is eating a foot-sandwich.

To give such characters added depth, we could give each of them pets. Friendly could have a pet Dove or a Butterfly or something and we could call it Harmony. The Dept. of Offense could have a pet too--maybe an oversized vampire bat named Impending Doom.

The referee could have a United Nations jersey or something and the judges could be members of the Security Council. If this campaign were successful, perhaps a spin-off could happen at the U.N.; every country in the U.N. would get to pick a representative for the throwdown (I'm glad Brock Lesnar is American!) and then it'd on--U.N. headquarters would be a total cagematch and all resolutions would be decided by no-holds-barred matches. If countries were allied, they could fight in a tag team match, and so on.

This pro-wrestling, in turn, could replace actual war, thereby (a) making life better and (b) always ensuring that something interesting is on TV. Even if the U.N. wrestling league is a pie in the sky idea, I think it's pretty apparent that our military should be represented in cartoon form soon.

Please ask the folks at the D.O.D. to look into this for me.

Brett

Letter #8 to President Obama | Subject: Superheroes, Cartoons and Foreign Policy

Letter #8 to President Obama | Subject: Superheroes, Cartoons and Foreign Policy

Dear President Obama,

One of your challenges as our President is to help improve America's image abroad. So far, I think you’ve been doing a pretty good job, but I have a few suggestions that might help our country in this endeavor.

During the last administration there was an assumption that if we exported democracy abroad that the world would see the freedoms inherent in our culture and respect us because of them. But that implies imposing one’s idea of what governance should be like upon another people, and as we’ve seen in the last few years, that stuff can be tricky. So instead of exporting political ideologies or abstract governmental frameworks, I’d suggest we use two of our existing well-known exports to improve our image abroad—superheroes and cartoons.

I suggest we use cartoons for two reasons. First, the government’s got a pretty good record on cartoons. We invented Smokey the Bear, who rocks, though I’d be lying if I said that we’ve haven’t had our share of clunkers. (Remember Bert, the “Duck and Cover” Turtle from that 1951 Federal Civil Defense Administration video?) But even there, Bert was only a little radioactive pizza away from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Secondly, it’s not like we’ll have to invent these characters; they exist already! The Transformers, Superman, He-Man, the Looney Toons—all of these could be used to our national advantage.

For instance, consider the Transformers and our current situation in North Korea. I don’t know about you, but North Korea’s government reminds me a lot of the Decepticons. I mean, every time someone at the U.N. even mentions North Korea, North Korea’s Central News Agency publishes half a dozen rambling, angry press releases. Worse yet, the letters are so intransigent and unyielding it’s easy to think that they were composed by an evil robot. I get halfway through one of these press releases and I’m like, whatever, Megatron.

Consider this excerpt from a recent DPRK press release about North Korea’s recent attempted satellite launch:

Pyongyang, April 26 (KCNA) -- The successful launch of the satellite Kwangmyongsong-2 precisely means the victory of the might of the DPRK's ideology and mental power, will and pluck and self-supporting economy and science and technology.

Huh? I’m pretty sure the DPRK official “translator” is actually Yahoo’s Babelfish software. In any case, the end result is hilarious, and it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch for us to officially label North Korea News Agency as the Decepticons. In turn, we could refer to ourselves as the Autobots, and half of the work would be done for us. I mean, who are you going to support in the end, the Decepticons or the Autobots? It’s not even a choice--no one likes the Decepticons! (Except maybe Dick Cheney. Since his term’s over now, can you tell me, was he a Decepticon? I was always leaning towards yes, but I was never quite sure.)

In addition, not only would this improve our image, this whole endeavor would be marketable and it would seriously make C-SPAN a lot more interesting. As things currently stand, C-SPAN’s just a blur of boring old suits and ties, and the only bit of excitement is a bowtie now and again. But imagine a Senate Subcommittee filled with senators in capes and utility belts and crazy helmets. Now I know what you're going to say--you probably think that that'd be improper or unprofessional, but I don't buy it. There’s not much difference between a cape and a tie anyway. In the end, both are pretty arbitrary and pointless. Capes, at least, would add a little drama to those long, dreary Senate sessions. And they’d add drama, as they'd make escalators a moment of life and death.

And this isn’t just a national idea; each state could adopt or create their own superheroes to improve their image and drive tourism. Minnesota’s been really ahead of the curve on this—we’ve got Paul Bunyan and that guy means big bucks for cities that were smart enough to cash in on him. But why stop at a lumberjack and a silly blue ox? Consider my modest example—Midwestern Man. A resident of the Upper Midwest, he could ride a cow and use specially-hardened wedges of cheese as his shuriken-like main weapon. This would thereby highlight the area dairy industry, and he could be assisted in his good deeds by his fellow superheroes The Iron Range (featuring the iron-ore deposits in MN and MI) and his sidekick, Corn Boy. In fact, I was so excited about this idea I immediately began designing a costume for Midwestern Man. In fact, I’m wearing it as I write this.

I therefore like to encourage you to consider my proposal. If you take my suggestions, I think the world would be a better place.

Sincerely,

Brett Ortler

This is letter #8 to President Obama. Brett's writing (almost) a letter a day, though he skipped yesterday. See www.knockoutlit.org/brett.html for the rest.