She sat there with a carrot plugged into the side of her mouth. Gnawing on it. It\u2019s the only way to describe it. The kid was gnawing on it with her back teeth, grinding away little bits and smacking her lips while she did it.<\/p>\n
My daughter will ask for a carrot before she\u2019ll ask for a piece of candy \u2014 who knew such a thing was possible? Not carrot sticks, but a whole carrot. She\u2019ll chomp down to the very end, until her fingertips are brushing her teeth.<\/p>\n
She was doing this at the dinner table and I looked over at her. I put my chin on my fist and got nostalgic.
\n
\n\u201cYou know something,\u201d I told her, a smile washing across my face. \u201cYou look just like Bugs Bunny.\u201d<\/p>\n
She stopped crunching and stared at me. Then she put me in my place: \u201cBugs who!?!\u201d<\/p>\n
I was devastated. Gobsmacked. Busted up.<\/p>\n
What do you mean, \u201cBugs who?!?\u201d Bugs Bunny! Senior Bugs. The King of Cartoons. The King of Comedy, for that matter. You spend a good part of your life watching cartoons, kid. You mean you don\u2019t know about the \u201cwascally wabbit?\u201d<\/p>\n
I tried to make her understand. I used swinging, exasperated motions with my hands \u2026 like an orangutan after too many cups of coffee. (Parents always think this will help children understand.) My hands twirled in the air \u2014 like I was swatting flies. I tried to explain: \u201cBugs Bunny! \u2026 a rabbit \u2026 he ate carrots, just like you are now \u2026 he said \u2018what\u2019s up, doc?\u2019 \u2026 Elmer Fudd chased him around \u2026 with a gun \u2026 he had a GUN! \u2026 Fudd was a hunter \u2026 he tried to shoot Bugs, but he always missed \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
She just stared at me, munching out of the corner of her mouth. \u201cI\u2019m not getting you, doc,\u201d her stare seemed to say.<\/p>\n
My wife intervened: \u201cBugs Bunny was a horrible cartoon your father used to watch when he was a kid. They don\u2019t show cartoons like that anymore,\u201d and then I swear I heard her whisper under her breath, \u201cthank God!\u201d<\/p>\n
Horrible cartoon! HORR-IBLE CARTOON!!<\/p>\n
Bugs Friggin\u2019 Bunny. A survivor. The little guy. Always under duress, yet always cool as a cucumber. Who, I ask you, can eat a carrot while there\u2019s a hunting rifle pointed at them? Not me. I looked up to him. Who would think to stick that carrot down the gun barrel? That\u2019s genius. He was the quintessential underdog. Always picked on and chased, but never ruffled. Always had a comeback line. Boy, did I wish I had great comeback lines like that when some big kid was pushing me around. Where was that Bugs Bunny wit when I needed it?<\/p>\n
My brother and I spent our Saturday mornings \u2014 huge chunks of our lives \u2014 glued to Bugs and his pals.<\/p>\n
There were great lessons there. Like if you\u2019re a coyote who can afford to buy all that stuff to kill a roadrunner \u2014 bombs, anvils, rocket skates \u2014 why couldn\u2019t you afford a nice steak instead? I mean, have you ever seen a roadrunner in real life? They\u2019re scrawny things with no meat on their bones. They\u2019re not worth the trouble. Wise up, friend! Get yourself a bucket of fried chicken, for goodness sake.<\/p>\n
Or invest some of that money in the stock market. Diversify. Get out of the desert. Buy yourself a nice condo in Palm Beach. Cartoons taught me about problem-solving, common sense and dividend yields.<\/p>\n
They weren\u2019t horrible!<\/p>\n
Violent? Sure. Full of crude stereotyping? I\u2019ll give you that. But there were little lessons in there. Like the little guy always lives to see another day, and the bad guy always takes an anvil to the head. What\u2019s wrong with that?<\/p>\n
At one point, my daughter admitted she had seen a picture of Bugs somewhere. A \u201cpicture!\u201d She kept gnawing on her carrot, probably thinking about her own cartoons. Good, wholesome, educational fare. Yeesh! Anyway, she\u2019ll see. One day she\u2019ll have to defend them to her children. And I say, good luck with that one, doc!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
She sat there with a carrot plugged into the side of her mouth. Gnawing on it. It\u2019s the only way to describe it. The kid was gnawing on it with her back teeth, grinding away little bits and smacking her lips while she did it. My daughter will ask for a carrot before she\u2019ll ask for a piece of candy \u2014 who knew such a thing was possible? Not carrot sticks, but a whole carrot. She\u2019ll chomp down to the very end, until her fingertips are brushing her teeth. She was doing this at the dinner table and I looked over at her. I put my chin on my fist and got nostalgic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[317,8],"tags":[409,410,411],"class_list":["post-907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2012-nutshells","category-parenthoodandchildren","tag-bugs-bunny","tag-cartoon","tag-loony-tunes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=907"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":915,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions\/915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}