Power of Giza found in cartoon

I'm new here so please bear with me.

I happened to be watching an episode a children's cartoon called the backyardigans a few weeks ago. Don't ask me why as I don't have any children, but I'm glad I did. Anyway, the premise of the episode was these "children/animals" found a map in an old book that led the way to what they referred to as a singing hill. (on the map it was obviously a step pyramid, but they never referred to it as such) There were 2 ways to get there. One was through the desert (like egypt) and the other way was through the jungle (South America). When they got to the hill (pyramid) they had to climb the hill to find a stone. At the top of the pyramid was a stone that they were fighting over and like in all good cartoons, the fragile stone slipped out of their hands and fell down the pyramid and broke in two. Now it gets fun. They put the two halves together and started to sing. As they were singing, the Stone started glowing and they started to levitate to the top of the pyrmid.

One reason I found this so interesting is that I remember reading an article a few years ago on the internet about Tibetian monks who sang and used musical instruments to levitate large boulders onto a mountain cliff. Plus there seemed to be a lot of references to the pyramid and its powers without ever referring to it as a pyramid.

Plus doesn't that seem to be a little heavy of a theme for a show that is geared toward 5-7 year olds? Maybe it's some sort of conditioning for children? Or am I making too much of this and it was just a kid's cartoon about getting to a hill?

What do you guys think? Am I crazy?

Your not crazy, but perhaps your reading too much into a kids show. The people who wrote it probably knew as much as you about pyramids and rumors about Tibetan monks and included it all in the cartoon simply because when put together its entertaining.

Definitely. I had a friend who did some writing for cartoon shows (I think it was Ren and Stimpy... it was something that I didn't care for and didn't watch.) It might be just a vague knowledge OR it might be that they knew nothing at all, but were simply trying to make another point about love, harmony, friendship, and magic and working together.

I love Ken dearly as a friend, but what he knew about was art and animation and storytelling and humor. He knew absolutly nothing about cultural or mystical or conspiracy stuff.

I should also add that the script is usually not written by a single person, but is a team effort -- so there's no telling who came up with that. But I doubt they had any agenda beyond the very obvious message of the show.

[edit on 23-8-2005 by Byrd]

Well I think the writers put it in consciously but not as some sinister plan. I mean you can just imagine the poor writer. Probably balding in his forties, virgin and has to write tv shows for kids every day. Which will get very old, seeing how most kid shows have the same lesson and outline every episode. So probably slipped in some metaphors and allusions to entertain himself. Thats what I would do anyway

Well, at least I'm not crazy. But I did find it entertaining for me. But I guess they are doing that with most cartoons now. Singing and dancing and love and sharing for the kids, but subtle humor and intellectual themes for the adults. I guess I should have learned that from the last 3 or 4 Pixar animated movies.

You haven't been around long enough if you think it's a new phenomina. I once had to endure "The Care Bears Movie." I would GLADLY sit through 8 Smurf movies and a "My Little Pony" movie to not have to see that one again.

Golly, I thought I'd die of diabetes! The kids loved it, however. Magic and singing and sweetness cures all in the end. And then there's "Ferngully"... not as bad, but same "magic and singing brings wonderful things."


...although, come to think of it, if we could just convince folks to engage in ritualized aggression (like dancing or singing or playing the drums) we would all be a lot better off. I'd rather see them carrying banjos than handguns.

Byrd if you lived with a banjo player you would never say that!

Hey I like fern gully! I mean how can you go wrong with a transvestite oil manifest demon?

My favorite kid thing though is Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Which I dont think should even be qualified as a kids book anymore. What with the hookahs and communion symbolism.

Originally posted by Byrd

...although, come to think of it, if we could just convince folks to engage in ritualized aggression (like dancing or singing or playing the drums) we would all be a lot better off. I'd rather see them carrying banjos than handguns.