Who is your favorite cartoon character?
We treat cartoon logic as something we outgrow. I want to suggest the reverse. Children face few consequences that last; adults face mortgages, diagnoses, court dates and reputations. We are the ones who need a picture in which the fall is real and the fall is not final. Every tradition that invented a trickster seems to have worked this out long ago. They did not build the figure for the children. They built it for the people carrying the weight, and then let the children watch.
Cartoons Were Never Lying To Us
The prompt asks who my favourite cartoon character is. I do not have one anymore. But I have a favourite cartoon quality: the freedom to imagine a world where failure is temporary, problems can be laughed at, and tomorrow always offers another adventure.
The usual thing to say next is that this is childish and we outgrow it. I want to argue the opposite. Cartoons are not unrealistic about failure. They may be the most honest account of it we have.
Watch what actually happens when the anvil falls
The coyote runs off the cliff. He hangs in the air, looks at us, and drops. He is flattened. Then the next frame arrives and he is whole again, already planning the next attempt.
We call this fantasy. But look closely at what the scene claims. It does not claim that the fall did not hurt. It shows the hurt in full. What it claims is that the fall is not the final word about him. Damage is real and damage is not permanent. That is not a lie about the world. That is a position on it.
Compare it with Sisyphus
The Greeks gave us the opposite picture. Sisyphus pushes his stone up the hill, and every time it nears the top it rolls back down. He begins again. Forever.
The shape looks similar to the cartoon. Effort, collapse, restart. But the meaning is reversed. Sisyphus repeats because he is being punished. His failure is designed to be endless. Nothing he learns changes anything. In the cartoon, repetition is opportunity. In the myth, repetition is the sentence.
Compare it with the Jataka tales
Buddhist tradition offers a gentler version. The Jataka stories tell of the Buddha’s previous births, in which he appears as a deer, a monkey, a merchant, a king. Some lives are noble. Some are foolish. No single life is the whole account.
This is closer to the cartoon. Failure becomes one instalment rather than a verdict. But there is a cost. The comfort depends on a very long ledger, stretching across lifetimes you cannot remember. The cartoon offers the same mercy in twenty-four frames. You get the fresh start now, and you get it in this body.
Compare it with Job
The Book of Job ends with restoration. He loses everything and receives more than he lost. Again the shape looks familiar.
But Job must first endure an ordeal, submit to a whirlwind, and be told that the reasons are beyond him. Restoration is granted, and it is granted on terms. The cartoon asks for nothing. No lesson is extracted. The coyote is not improved by being flattened. He is simply allowed to continue.
So three great traditions handle failure by making it permanent, or by deferring recovery across lifetimes, or by charging a price for it. The cartoon grants recovery freely. Of the four, it is the strangest and the kindest.
And it is also the oldest
Here is the part we miss. The animated character is not a modern invention. Every tradition issued one long before film existed.
West Africa gave us Anansi the spider, who schemes, overreaches, and is humiliated, and who returns in the next story unchanged. The Islamic world gave us Nasreddin Hoja, riding his donkey backwards, saying foolish things that turn out to be wise. South India gave us Tenali Raman, the court jester who survives by wit alone.¹ The Native American plains gave us Coyote, who is greedy, gets caught, dies in some tellings, and is somehow alive again in the next.
These figures share one licence. They are permitted to fail in public. And because they fail in public, the audience does not have to. The village watches Nasreddin make the mistake, laughs, and goes home lighter.
Notice who was in that audience. Not children. These stories were told in courts, markets, mosques and campfires, to adults who were taxed, bereaved, indebted and afraid. The trickster was adult medicine.
So the question turns around
I began by saying that growing up should not mean losing this quality. I now think that framing was wrong.
Growing up does not remove our need for the cartoon. It creates it. Children have few consequences that last. Adults have mortgages, diagnoses, court dates and reputations. We are the ones who need a picture in which the fall is real and the fall is not final.
Every culture that invented a trickster had already worked this out. They did not make him for the children. They made him for the people carrying the weight, and then let the children watch.
I do not have a favourite cartoon character. I have a favourite claim, and it is this: you are not what happened to you yesterday. Tomorrow you get redrawn.
¹ Tenali Raman was a poet and jester at the Vijayanagara court of Krishnadevaraya in the sixteenth century. His stories, originally Telugu, are retold across South India in Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam.
John Britto Kurusumuthu
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In response to the WordPress Daily Writing Prompt — 11 September 2026
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We all need to chill and watch a cartoon
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INTERESTING that you would pick the trickster spirit in all of your examples. My boss in most of the years—15—being a security guard said he was Lakota Soux and left several folklore books at the desk for me and others—and him—to read. He had one whole book just on Coyote—not the roadrunner one, either! Some of his adventures would make an adolescent boy blush with jealousy! Until his wife caught up to him—or secretly turned the tables on him—then mercilously beat him for his intentions!
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I THINK….THE AUTHOR OF THIS article has a big chunk of trickster in him—–I asked for a Christian poem and got…well—Coyote personified—with two minor mrtions of Biblical characters and a lot of commentary about creative messy people!
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This host is giving you another opportunity, if you will accept it, please. to write A REALLY GOOD CHRISTIAN POEM—using at LEAST TWO of the references I said you could avail yourself of. I thought you said you’d retired. Is that not so? Please now give me something that spends more time exalting our mutual Lord and less time lampooning—something more edifying? I did have two atheists and several people of my own church turn me down. EXHORT AND OR EDIFY THE BODY OF CHRIST! PLEASE-????????
Thank you for the thoughtful challenge. I understand your desire for a poem that clearly exalts Christ and edifies the Body of Christ.
My purpose with this blog, however, is to write for a general readership—people of different faiths, cultures, and backgrounds, including Christians but not limited to them. Therefore, when I respond to a broad prompt, I try to make the reflection accessible and meaningful even to readers who may not share my faith. That is why I sometimes use humour, creativity, stories, or familiar cultural themes as an entry point.
This does not mean I am avoiding Christian faith. It means I am conscious of the audience and the purpose of each piece. A general-interest article and a deliberately Christian poem can serve different purposes.
I appreciate your challenge, and if I accept your invitation to write the Christian poem, I will make its purpose unmistakable: to exalt Christ, draw on Scripture, and encourage the Body of Christ.
IF-?
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How do you square this opinion/position with the amount of time spent on WAKEUP CALLS-? I;m really not trying to pick a fight here–or maybe I am, in that case let’s let it rest. I;m obviously out of sorts and you have better things to do. just vented to my friend Susyn about her wanting as little contact with me as possible and another woman, my former P.C.A. and her chsnge of attitude over time. I just wrote a poem that should help if my keyboaed would just give me all the letters I’m actually typing, rather than the computer guessing and getting it wrong.
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I’m stopping now—I can feel me cranking up again! Have a good day Sir. Tomorrow’s Sunday for me and there is frustration and conflict even in church due to my failing performance during the service. But it’s about the only lifeline I have…so I can’t chuck it. Just with God’s grace be humbled and learn and findnew avenues if I can.
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I;m stopping—again—have a blessed Sunday—pray for me, please? RESPECTFULLY IN HRIST, JONATHAN CASWELL
I understand your question about the “Wake-up Calls.” There is no contradiction.
My blog is written for a general readership, but that does not mean every post has to avoid Christian perspectives. My Sunday “Wake-up Calls” are intentionally different: they are my weekly Bible-based reflections, written from a Christian perspective and openly engaging Scripture.
For example, this Sunday’s reflection, “Why Do We Keep Weighing Each Other on Scales God Never Made?”, directly examines Romans 14:17 and other Scriptures.
So the distinction is simple: the blog welcomes everyone; individual series can have a specific purpose and perspective. I can write a Christian reflection for readers who welcome it without assuming that every reader of the blog shares my faith.
And please don’t worry about our disagreement. I appreciate your honesty. More importantly, I hear your request for prayer. I sincerely wish you a peaceful Sunday and God’s grace and strength for whatever you are facing.
Thank you Sir…so would you assuming you are willing to accept the mission—cue the tape hissing and smoking while Mr. Phelps watches…would you write your piece assuming every reader is a Christian, whether they are or not—that’s how I write mine. Then folks can accept or reject for themselves as our God does allow personal choice.
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I don’t think it is a major disagreement—certainly wisdom can be found in more than one source. But I had to choose Biblically which God was most importanr. I cannot and will not feature Hindu gods with mine,or Muslim views of the Quran although for a while I tried to be friendly that way. But disagreeing with their views doth not help diplomacy. And I cannot in all conscience validate a view that violates Biblical truth. I lost my best friens through high school because I was brought to the point where I had to choose between accepting my Mormon friend as a fellow Christian where the honest truth was that he wasnot and our understanding of who the Christ was, were vastly out of sync. For Brent Burnett, Christ was a created being. for the Bible, He was the son of God and God in the flesh. No way to reconcile those two, I hurt him badly for the rest of his life—didn’t want to,but I either had to be true to my God and God’s WORD…or no.
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ANYWAY—I should be getting sleep now. A couple of my blog followers keep aking..when are you going to get more sleep? And I say, whenever I can! Have what I guess is a pleasant Sunday afternoon! If you ever go through MUMBAI…wave to the place for me—there lives a young blogger I used to corrspond with, in one of my bios, my wife and I seriously thought of adopting her…which didn’t happen. RUELHA is her name.
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Have a blessed weekend, Sir!
Thank you,for explaining your position so openly and personally. I understand much better now that your writing begins from a consciously Biblical Christian foundation, and I respect your desire to remain faithful to it.
For my part, I write for a wider audience, and I sometimes draw wisdom from different philosophical, cultural, and spiritual traditions. But I should make one thing equally clear: personally, I keep my Christian faith and the Bible above all. My openness to learning from other traditions does not diminish or replace that foundation.
I don’t see wisdom found elsewhere as necessarily competing with my faith. I see it as an opportunity to reflect, understand other people, and communicate with a wider readership, while remaining grounded in what I believe.
So I agree with you that this need not be a major disagreement. We may have different approaches to writing for our audiences while both remaining faithful to our own convictions.
And yes—please do get some sleep! Your readers may have a point there. 😊 I hope you have a peaceful and blessed Sunday as well. And if I ever pass through Mumbai, I’ll certainly remember your kind request and think of Ruelha.
Take care, and thank you again for the thoughtful conversation.
Just doing my job Sir…whatever that is! Including calming down by working on my kitbashed AGWAY feed store from a stone two-stall engine house kit! Started building the grain elevators and fixing a rollup door to the truck filling entrance. Someday I’ll have pictures ! God bless, my Brother!
Setting the coyote next to Sisyphus, Job and the Jataka tales is a comparison I did not expect to find in a cartoon post, and it works. The distinction that lands hardest is that the cartoon extracts no lesson: the coyote is not improved by being flattened, he is simply allowed to continue. And you are right that the trickster was told in markets and courtyards to adults who were taxed and grieving, with the children just happening to be in the room. Tomorrow you get redrawn is a good thing to carry into a Saturday.
Thank you for such a thoughtful reading. You’ve captured exactly what I found fascinating about the Coyote: he doesn’t need to become wiser or “better” after every fall—he simply gets another chance to continue. And “tomorrow you get redrawn” is perhaps the simplest form of hope: yesterday may have flattened us, but it doesn’t have to be the final frame.