To be filed under, “Huh?”
Johnny Bravo. Johnny Bravo, people. I do not get it. I don’t get him. And yet, I find myself actually laughing while this is on, and then I am overcome with a horrible sort of shame. Help me.
Seriously, I don’t know who came up with this cartoon. (Okay, I lied. I do know. It was Van Partible, who possibly was looking for a way to to express what he thought life would be like with a normal name.) The premise, so near as I can make out, is that Johnny is a big blonde Elvis lookalike who’s searching for a woman. This doesn’t sound like a good basis for a kids’ cartoon, necessarily, but somehow it works. In the few episodes I’ve seen, my children have laughed themselves silly over how clueless Johnny is, and really, what are cartoons for if not to teach our children to laugh at others?
I guess I’d have to call it a love/hate thing. There are enough pop culture and adult references that my eyes don’t roll back in my head when I have to partake of it with the kids. That scores points, absolutely. On the other hand, did I mention that he’s a big dumb Elvis type trying to find a woman? That’s just… weird. And knowing that people are doing things like compiling Johnny Bravo pick-up lines doesn’t exactly give me a warm, fuzzy feeling when my kids want to watch it.
(Fortunately, my children are pretty oblivious. They didn’t even notice when my jaw dropped in horror—and then I changed the channel—after I heard “Can you guess how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Bravopop or Johnnypop… whatever you prefer?”)
For now, I’ll just be grateful that this is far from being my kids’ favorite show. Their position right now is sort of one of confused enjoyment, and really, so is mine.