When the cartoon ended, his mother came in an switched the channel to “Animaniacs”. Thomas was pleasantly surprised to discover that the cartoon which his Mother had selected for him to watch had even more film-based puns gauged to appeal to an adult mind.
The afternoon passed in slow fashion, with his mother coming in just as each show ended to switch to another she knew he would like. Thomas was a bit dumbfounded with her exact knowledge of children’s programming and their schedules at first, but after some thought he decided that she must have gotten the television listings from the newspaper and have had a schedule already picked out for him. The thought of being so completely controlled by his mother depressed him and ruined the entertainment value of the cartoons. Instead of being diverting, they were only evidence that he had fallen into a the pit of helplessness and dependency from which there was no escape.
