Easter is Mudfoot From Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids Laid Out in a Charity Hospital on Medicaid

Happy Easter folks. May you enjoy mixing and matching Jelly Belly jelly beans and creating new flavors to titillate the senses and scorch the soul.

When viewed with adult eyes the cartoons that populated our collective childhoods often betray (un)intended subtexts. Case in point: I don't know when it happened, but a few years ago Tom and Jerry became intolerable to my eyes. The levels of violence were simply too much for me to behold and I had to look away. In fact, I would rather watch Takashi Miike's Audition than sit through Jerry's twisted machinations of how to best destroy poor old Tom the cat. And as I related to the Tea Party GOP brigands, the Smurf's episode where those Marxist blue proles were infected by an STD that drove them to bite each other's behinds was beyond subtext--it was naked, unapologetically so...pure and simple.

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids does truly belong in the pantheon of adult themed cartoons that teach children the realities of living in a cruel world where bad things often happen to good people.

To point: The most awkward "mom and son viewing TV together moment" of my adolescent years was The Cosby Show when Rudy--so innocent for so long--had her "woman's day," the Cosby Kids episode that dealt with teenage pregnancy takes second place. I will never forget how my snow day was ruined as I watched New York's Channel 11 six in the AM broadcast of this painful moment, the hurt made more memorable as the Cosby Kids on that day aired after a particularly satisfying episode of Battle of the Planets. Two hours of Robotech helped to soothe the pain. But the scar would always remain.

Poor Mudfoot. He lived in a shack. He was a squatter. On more than one occasion he found himself physically debilitated and at the mercy of the kindness of strangers. And all of this happened to Mudfoot before President Obama's healthcare reforms. Life is so unfair. So cruel. Yes, it is.

My friends, please eat. Be merry. Enjoy your friends and family on this day. Even if things are hard, reflect on what you have as there are many folks who would envy your relative largess.