Upsetting Realizations

I'm well beyond the realization that many of the cartoons that I so loved when I was a kid are, in actuality, of extremely low quality. Similarly comes the realization that the more-recently produced low quality cartoons that Dakota watches are no worse.

Some realizations still manage to be as surprising as they are upsetting. For example, I'm watching Magilla Gorilla on Boomerang when I notice how much the kindly Mr. Peebles looks like the evil leader of the Axis during the 2nd World War (Are you crazy? You think I'm going to let either of that name or that word be a search-engine match to my blog? Get the net.) What gives with that? Surely it was not intentional, so does this evidence some sort of repressed fears by the artist? Maybe Peeples looks nothing like that and I'm projecting my own fears or aggression on to characters on the TV. If its the later, then why Magilla Gorilla?

In fact, I am deeply skeptical of either psychoanalytic theory. Rather, I think that, at a certain point, the recycled detritus of culture (that passes for new cultural production) eventually associates mosts things to some icon that it vaguely resembles. This sounds like a greatly simplifying process in our collective unconsciousness but it can lead to very disturbing associations between similar looking artifacts of good and evil.

I was getting some food somewhere(how's that for vague?) when I overheard someone relating a similar experience. He noticed that H.R. Pufinstuf look like (wait for it...) the Uruk Hai