What's up doc? Not your child's pants, that's for sure.

It’s 3:05 at McAllister Elementary School, and ten year old Brice Adams sits in a hallway waiting for Mr. Puckett to arrive. Mr. Puckett is the teacher who is overseeing detention this particular afternoon. As Brice fidgets in his chair, he sighs loudly and says “This is stupid. I don’t see why I have to be here.”

By all accounts, Brice Adams seems to be a normal kid. Shaggy brown hair, freckles, member of the softball team, into computer games. But it only takes a quick glance to see why Brice has been given detention: he is not wearing pants.

Brice Adams is just one of hundreds of thousands of kids who are part of a a growing and very troubling trend. In fact, it is estimated that one in ten kids regularly leaves home sans pants on any given day.

“It’s just shocking!” Mildred Adams, Brice’s grandmother, says. “I know my daughter raised him with more sense than this. He can’t be going outside without no britches on. What if some pervert sees him? What if he catches cold?”

Mrs. Adams echoes the questions of frustrated adults nationwide. But the big question for many is, why is this happening?

To get answers, we consulted two experts: child psychologist, Dr. Barney Douchester, and Diggum University Professor of Pop Culture Studies, Irma Windham.

“What we’re seeing is the result of exposure to old cartoons, primarily the ones made by Warner Brothers,” explains Douchester. “If you look at any cartoon with, say, Porky Pig for example, you see a character who wears a shirt or jacket, even a hat sometimes, but no pants, no clothing on the bottom half whatsoever.”

Many media outlets are banning any cartoons made prior to 1997 in an effort to reduce exposure to pants-free characters. McAllister Cable Net has even gone as far as to block all programming in which a cartoon animal is in any state of undress. This includes Bugs Bunny and Sylvester, who appear completely nude. Instead, they run advertisements for pants during times when such cartoons would have been aired.

But wait a minute: hasn’t the issue with these old cartoons always been the fact that they portray violence? The vicious and crafty Wile E. Coyote is repeatedly bludgeoned by oncoming trains, crushed by anvils and obliterated by dynamite. Elmer Fudd is constantly attempting to shoot Bugs Bunny and then feast on his entrails. Sylvester narrowly escapes being mauled by a bulldog. Various characters are flattened, dismembered and burned alive. So why, instead, are children getting up from the TV and walking away without their pants?

Professor Irma Windham explains. “In the past, violence was the issue with these programs. That was before the days of computer games and modern cartoons. Today, children have the luxury of being exposed to violence that is more realistic in nature. I mean, come on. If a child can play a video game that lets them shoot someone and see actual blood spatter, why would they want to go out and drop an anvil off a cliff onto a coyote?”

Dr. Douchester goes on to elaborate. “Children’s minds are like sponges. They learn lessons about how to conduct themselves from what they see, what they take in. And since they no longer need to take away the violence aspect of these cartoons, they take away the fashion aspect.”

But not everyone thinks it’s a problem. “Uh bedee uh bedee, uh bedee, it’s hogwash!” says cartoon enthusiast, Keller Martin. “Porky Pig’s bare butt doesn’t have anything more to do with some kid’s bare butt than Yoda has to do with my cousin liking short, old men with hairy ears. It’s all just coincidence. If some kid goes out with no pants on, I blame the parents. They ought to be standing there by the door with a pair of pants in hand, making sure little Johnny puts them on before he steps outside.”

And even more disturbing to some is that the children fail to see why this lack of pantage is a problem. “It’s not like I’m out underage drinking and stuff,” says 13 year old Anna Parker. “This is just my way of expressing myself.” When asked if she is a fan of old cartoons, Anna replied “Heck yeah.”

The debate continues, and it seems there is no end in sight…except for the hind ends of children across America who have chosen to fall under the influence of these cartoons. It seems the outcome is in the hands of parents: you choose to allow cartoons with pantsless characters, or not.

Santa Is Not the Messiah

Earlier today, I was eating an Andes mint and realized that the taste made me think of Christmas. If I were to have an Andes mint in July, I would end up with that Christmasy feeling, no doubt about it. And it struck me as a little odd. I mean sure, tastes and smells can bring back memories. But the whole thing brought to mind the big to-do about people referring to "the holidays" rather than calling it Christmas. For the past few years, people have been bucking the political correctness system that has taken Christ out of Christmas. There have been protests and boycotts. Feathers have been ruffled. Undies have been in a bundle. But how the heck is an Andes mint connected with the birth of Jesus?

It isn't. In fact, most of what we associate with Christmas has very little to do with Jesus. Sure, there are programs at churches and all. And there are the "twice a year people" (the ones who show up to church on Christmas and Easter) who go so they can feel like they're keeping it real. But once the program is over, they go on their merry way, off to shop for gifts or attend parties. Hey, just throw a manger scene on top of the gift pile to make it look like it all means something. I remember being at a friend's family gathering once and the matriarch had the grandchildren read the Christmas story from the Bible, admonishing them to "remember that Christmas is about Jesus." And then they commenced to ripping open a mountain of gifts, leaving a frenzied pile of wrapping paper and ribbon in their wake.

Hey, I'm as guilty as the next person. I'm not going to lie. But if we're going to make Christmas about gifts and parties and such, perhaps we SHOULD just call it "the holidays." If you think about it, it's ironic that people will threaten to boycott a store because the employees aren't allowed to wish them a merry Christmas while they're in there taking part in the very commercialization that takes Jesus out of the equation anyway.

Maybe we should just have a separate holiday to celebrate the birth of Jesus. He deserves to have his own special day and not just be a supporting cast member to Santa's leading role. I know, some people will gripe that that's "letting them win." But at the end of the day on December 25th, the baby Jesus in the Nativity is usually buried beneath a pile of wrapping paper. And that's not exactly keeping Christ in Christmas.