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Woodland creatures, jungle beasts and other critters molded my childhood.
I learned from the comics that rabbits are smart alecs, mice build Magic Kingdoms and ducks are obnoxious -- except for Yakky Doodle, and he had his moments, too.
My first superhero was a canine named Underdog, who was always having to rescue Sweet Polly Purebred. From this, I learned that women can be trouble.
There also was Mighty Mouse, a barrel-chested rodent who often had to come save the day for Pearl Pureheart, who somehow kept getting tied to railroad tracks by the villainous cat Oil Can Harry.
When Dad drove over railroad tracks on family outings, I kept a lookout in case I spotted any girls tied to the tracks. I never saw any.
The fallacy that women always need a heroic man -- or possibly a mouse -- to save them was not the only scar left behind from the anthropomorphic cartoon animals of my childhood.
One day at school, the teacher showed us a photo of a little brown bird with a long, narrow beak. "This is a roadrunner."
We laughed politely at her poor attempt at a joke. Everybody knew that the roadrunner was a tall blue and purple bird with an upturned yellow beak. We also knew its call: "Beep, beep."
The teacher rolled her eyes. "You kids better brace yourself for when we get to the Tasmanian devil."
I supposed that next she was going to claim that bears in green hats and neckties didn't steal picnic baskets, or that scaredy-cat dogs with big appetites didn't solve monster mysteries or that panthers weren't pink.
Anthropomorphic cartoon animals put a lot of pressure on my life.
There was this bear in dungarees who pointed right at me through the TV screen and told me that only me, a 6-year-old boy, could prevent forest fires.
We didn't live anywhere near a forest. Yet if one burned, it would be my fault? Couldn't that owl who knew how many licks it took to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop handle the job? He lived in the forest.
A dog kept telling me to take a bite out of crime. Not if it tasted like beets or asparagus, I wouldn't. A few years later, four turtles taught martial arts by a rat popped out of the sewers to take a bite out of cri..., er, pizza.
Who was the criminal, anyway -- that big white rabbit who kept trying to steal Trix from those two little kids?
A tiger with a deep voice insisted that Sugar Frosted Flakes were gr-r-reat. Later, someone -- probably McGruff the Crime Dog -- took a bite and declared sugar criminal.
That forced the bear in the turtleneck sweater and the frog in the baseball cap to drop the word "sugar" from the names of their breakfast cereals too.
Not all my encounters with anthropomorphic critters were traumatic.
My first rock band was the Banana Splits -- Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper and Snork -- who were always making up a mess of fun, tra la la, la la la la.
My real first rock band was the Monkees, monkeying around but not monkeys at all. On the other paw, the Banana Splits featured an orange gorilla named Bingo, who played drums.
More music came from this big dragon in white boots who was the mayor of a place called Living Island. We sent in a bunch of box tops to get his album in the mail. Actually, most of the singing was done by a boy named Jimmy, who carried a talking flute in his shirt pocket, but that's getting into a whole different category of unsettling images that I carried into adulthood.
If a fleet of musical instruments, trees and furniture started talking and chasing me around, I knew exactly what to do: call that teeny, tiny insect in a white football helmet for big-time help. He'd shoot out of the ground yelling his battle cry, "Up and at 'em with Atom Ant!"
Tra la la and Scooby Doo!
If you were traumatized as a kid by wascally wabbits or snickering mutts, report it to Cole at burton.w.cole@gmail.com.