When I was a kid in Iowa in the 1960’s Saturday morning television was the singular source of fuel for the imagination.  I loved the various adventure cartoons.  Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, Thundarr the Barbarian, and the Herculoids were the source of endless lets-pretend games in Granpa’s grove and in the old barn.

I suppose the characters I envisioned myself being the most often were Zandor and his son Dorno.  These two practically naked people lived on a primitive planet that had to constantly be defended from space-faring invaders and free-booters that had ray-gun technology on their side.  The only weapons that the practically naked barbarians were able to use against the villains were exploding rocks that were shot out of a slingshot by Zandor and Dorno and Tara, or out of the horn-gun on the head of Tundro the living tank-beast with too many legs.  Of course, Igoo the giant rock ape could bop ’em with his big stone fists, or Zok the lightning dragon, could zap them with tail and eye lasers.  And Gloop and Gleep, the living Play-Doh blobs, could also always shape themselves into flyswatters or springs or wet blankets, or… well, you have to see it to really get it.

I learned valuable lessons from watching the Herculoids and then pretending to be them.  First of all, I learned that back-to-nature, practically-naked barbarians were morally superior to those who solve their problems with technology.  I also learned that you can win fights with exploding rocks and yelling, “Zandor!  Look out!” at the right time over computerized flying robots with lasers and disintegration rays. There was also the thing about never knowing when an old Space Ghost villain like Brakk or Moltarr was going to show up, and you needed to be ready to defeat them by doing the same things to them that Space Ghost had done to them in previous episodes.  And for some reason, bad guys come with a psychological need to capture Tara or Dorno or both Tara and Dorno and put them in cages.

I hope there was nothing psycho-sexual embedded in those old episodes.  That would be a terrible thing to do to an impressionable young boy who loved to watch the cartoons.  Explain to me again, Alex Toth and Hanna Barbera,  why are Zandor, Dorno, and Tara practically naked all the time?  Oh, yes, it was a tropical planet.  It must have been hot there.

Anyway, I must end this homage now, before I start analyzing how this somewhat bizarre cartoon actually affected me as a child.  I loved the Herculoids.  I still love them… no matter how goofy and weird they are.

I have to confess, I turned the debate off halfway through.  It was mean, gray, and dehumanizing.  Pillory Clampton was easily the person that you should choose.  If offered a choice between tainted water and oozing green toxic waste when you are dying of thirst, you choose the tainted water.  It may slowly kill you, but it won’t turn you into a three-headed mutant moose-man.  Disenhearteningly, the mutant orange bag of testosterone and bile won the debate.  He manipulated the course of the debate to his talking points.  He got away with threatening to use the powers of the president to prosecute her and imprison her for the very thing that the FBI already said she couldn’t reasonably be prosecuted for.  He made his cruel and selfish points directly in her face.

When confronted with his terrible rapist fantasy caught on audio tape, he went on a rant about the supposed sex crimes of Pillory’s husband, suggesting that a man who indulged in his own goatish urges in the past with willing women who later changed their minds, is somehow more important to vilify in the press than what come out of his own piggy little mind in the past.  Maybe on this one it isn’t tainted water, but partially poisoned water in the first cup, but I think I would still rather drink it than what he offers in that glowing green cup.

And the subject of Obamacare came up.  The mad orangutan promised to repeal it.  He says it is a total failure and needs to be done away with.  And it is unfortunately true that premiums and co-pays have gone up to ridiculous degrees.  Especially in places like Texas where the lovely governor sabotaged it by not accepting the medicare expansion and all the conditions of the law needed to make it truly work.  But the orange one will take away the protections that keep me alive and off the street.  I have six pre-existing conditions.  Insurance companies hate people like me.  They prefer the ones who pay the premiums and never make claims.  But I can’t afford all the hospital bills and medical expenses my family has amassed over the last decade.  Heck, I am supposed to be on three different maintenance medications that I should be taking every day.  I am no longer buying any of them in order to afford buying food.  I have cut down severely on checking my blood sugar, because diabetic testing supplies have become unaffordable and the insurance refuses to pay for most of it.  I agree that Obamacare needs to be improved, but I will have to give up all hope of ever seeing a doctor again when I am sick if the old Mexican-hater becomes the next president.

I know my opinions count for nothing.  I have not been in good health, and probably won’t be able to go and vote because of it.  Still, I pray that the next president turns out to be a woman instead of the world’s worst malignant sausage on two legs.  Yes, you heard me right.  Donald is the worst wurst in my humble opinion.

Good ol’ Dave Winchuk sez, “You gotta forgive ol’ Trump for locker room talk.  He’s jes bein’ a man.