Knowing the bad parts of something you love strengthens that love because it creates a guiltier pleasure — enjoying something that many would consider bad taste.

When I was a child, every Saturday started out the same. I woke up, ran downstairs into the kitchen, grabbed the Lucky Charms and a giant mixing bowl and turned on the TV. Fox and NBC had the best cartoons in my day.

We had no Cartoon Network, NickToons, Toon Disney or Fox Kids. This was our one shot to sit and rot our brains for four to five hours at a time. But thanks to the 30-second morals at the end, my parents thought the shows taught me something.

I watched cartoons like “G.I. Joe,” “The Transformers” and “M.A.S.K.” These shows, in my mind, were the greatest shows ever. They had action, excitement and a complete catalog of toys with which I wished to fill my room.

Whenever we, as college students, look back on the shows of our childhood, we see cartoons currently on TV as crap that offers little. I often wonder what “Pokemon” and “Yu-Gi-Oh” teach children nowadays. I think that the animation of these new shows is lazy. They use a lot of static shots and recycled images. Plots are patchy and often almost nothing ias settled.

There are few Saturday morning cartoons on TV that catch my eye now. Yes, I still do get up every Saturday and watch cartoons. Shows like “Shaolin Showdown” and “Coconut Fred’s Fruit Salad Island” are my current must-sees. These programs honor shows like “G.I. Joe” and “The Animaniacs,” but are different in their own rights.

Naturally, I cling to the memories of my childhood and worship the old shows that filled my Saturday mornings. I watch the entire first seasons of “G.I. Joe” and “Transformers” without ever really comparing them to shows now. But now, having gained a third cartoon series on DVD, I have come to see cracks in my system of belief.

It all happened when my friends Big Mac and Sparky moved to Chicago. As a going away present I got them the first season of “He-Man.” Naturally I thought I should pick one up for myself while I was at it.

Late that night, after the going away party, I plopped down and began watching the first few episodes. I thought this would be a great end to the evening — me, sitting on the couch wrapped in a blanket, sharing my time with He-Man.

Being in a slightly intoxicated state didn’t help what I was about to watch. After the first two episodes I began to wonder if what I saw before my eyes was really true. A show, which I once immortalized for being the supreme champion of cartoon shows, wasn’t as perfect and flawless as I remembered.

My age had finally caught up with me. I saw all the flaws in “He-Man.” I saw the awful, terrible and atrocious animation on the show. This animation, after all, makes “Dragonball Z” look like a Disney movie when it comes to quality.

The stories were poorly written and characters jumped in and out of plot lines. Stories were archaic and basic and every single episode was about Skeletor finding some magical artifact and using it against King Randle and the people of Eternia.

By the end of every show, He-Man crushes the magical artifact with his bulging biceps and life returns to normal.

And what moral did this teach me? According to one episode, it’s OK that my parents don’t live together, because they still love me. That’s great advice for me now, but my parents didn’t get divorced until I was in high school.

No wonder I was a screwball of a kid. I idolized shows that taught me not to play hide and seek in abandoned refrigerators. Has anyone ever heard of someone locking him or herself in a fridge? I mean come on, how stupid did these shows think we were?

Wait — I know — as stupid as they made us. But the best thing is looking back at all this and loving these shows even more. It puts into context why I am the way I am. Without these cartoons’ messed-up influences on my childhood, I would have never looked into animation as a career. Then I would never have been driven insane by animating, and never wound have ended up writing about cartoons.

Knowing the bad parts of something you love strengthens that love because it creates a guiltier pleasure — enjoying something that many would consider bad taste. I’m sure if I made my 16-year-old brother watch “He-Man” he would hate it.

So this Saturday I sat down and watched all the Saturday morning cartoons with an unprejudiced eye. And what did I find? Well, most cartoons are still crap. Remakes are never good things in the world of cartoons.

The new versions of “Batman,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and “Transformers” are shames to their predecessors. “The Loonatic” is what happens when the WB won’t let classic characters like Bugs Bunny die.

My favorite shows are still favorites because they are quality shows. They’re fun, original and make anyone watching them feel young.

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