This morning our son and I were talking at breakfast and out of nowhere I mentioned watching "Magilla Gorilla" on Saturday mornings. I hadn't thought about Magilla for a long long time. Our son replied "Who's that?" It was at the precise moment I realized that I have failed as a parent.
It all came rushing back to me. Getting up at 7am on Saturday mornings with a bowl of cereal loaded with sugar and watching cartoons until our Mom would make us turn it off and "go outside and play". Unsupervised of course.
Of course you couldn't have a cartoon without a snappy theme song so I found a few on Youtube. Even though I haven't thought about Magilla Gorilla in about 40 years or so I quickly learned that I still know every word to the theme song. I played it for our son and it is now stuck in his head. Maybe I can redeem myself as a parent...one cartoon at a time.