The PragerUniverse: Behind the Laugher
After the cameras stop rolling
Screenshot.
[The PragerU cartoon of LEO and LAYLA meeting FREDERICK DOUGLASS, soon to be taught in Florida schools, extended:]
LEO: Well, it’s been nice meeting you, Mr. Douglass, but we have to get back to 2023.
DOUGLASS: Why, we’re already back, Leo. Haven’t you noticed?
LEO: [Looks around] Huh! I guess it sorta does look the same.
LAYLA: That’s because the city landmarked Old Town to promote tourism.
LEO: Really? I thought it was because PragerU doesn’t pay its animators.
DOUGLASS: Leo, you’re talking like one of those radicals I warned you about. Remember what I said about William Lloyd Garrison.
LEO: Yeah, well, actually, Mr. Douglass, while you were going on and on about how hundreds of years of slavery was worth it to get the United States, I looked up Garrison. He’s hardcore. I thought you were just kidding about him lighting the Constitution on fire but he actually did that shit.
DOUGLASS: See here, young man —
LEO: And he didn’t just fight to free slaves – he fought to give women the vote and equal rights too!
LAYLA: Really? [To DOUGLASS] Do you support women’s rights, too, Mr. Douglass?
DOUGLASS: Well, for white women, yes.
LAYLA: Excuse me?
LEO: What the fuck?
DOUGLASS: [To LEO] That’s the second time you’ve sworn in the presence of an elder, Leo! If I weren’t so animated so goddamn stiff, I’d beat your ass into the ground.
LEO: [Hopping off to the side] I can Super Mario with you all day long, old man.
LAYLA: Mr. Douglass, what did you mean about only supporting white women’s rights?
DOUGLASS: Well, Layla, women in general are more likely than men to vote for dangerous radicals like William Lloyd Garrison and Joe Biden, but white women don’t do it by very much. So we figure it’s OK to let them vote, but we have to take steps to get them to vote the right way. First off, we’re banning abortion. Then birth control.
LAYLA: Hold up, what?
DOUGLASS: When women lose control of their reproductive rights, they’re more likely to accept a subordinate role in society. Of course, a woman is less likely to accept this if she goes to college, which is why you’re getting married as soon as you get out of middle school and having babies.
LAYLA: Like hell!
DOUGLASS: [To the camera] I hope you folks at home can see how badly these PragerU educational videos are needed!
LEO: Black men vote Democratic, Mr. Douglass. I guess you don’t want them to vote, either?
DOUGLASS: That’s right, Leo, and that’s why we’re doing everything we can to overturn the Voting Rights Act so we can keep black men and women from going to the polls.
LEO: [Pointing at DOUGLAS] Aha! You acted like you didn’t know anything about Reconstruction or the 20th Century Civil Rights movement! Now you sound like Richard Hanania! I’m starting to think you’re not the real Frederick Douglass!
LAYLA: Yeah, the real Frederick Douglass went to the freaking Seneca Falls Convention. Alright, Mister — who are you really?
LEO: Yeah! Who are you?
DOUGLASS: [Shouts] I am Douglass! But I am greatly changed! Children, you have no idea what it’s like to survive all these years, more years than a man ought to endure, as a cartoon. I don’t just mean this sad-ass limited-animation cartoon — I mean a cartoon of everything I ever stood for, my reputation wrangled by every lazy white writer with a Civil War assignment. Well, I had it, and I hooked up with the first company that promised to pay me to speak their nonsense. If I must be a cartoon, I reckoned I’d be a million-dollar cartoon, like Garfield. Isn’t that right, Clarence?
[CLARENCE THOMAS appears in judicial robes and hold several cinched bags marked with dollar signs.]
THOMAS: You know it, Fred!
LEO: I don’t believe either of you! Thomas, you’re just a crook, [to DOUGLASS] and you, whoever you are, you’re just a fucking cartoon!
DOUGLASS: As are you, children! We’re not only in the 21st Century, we’re in my 21st Century — where everything’s a cartoon! Where Republicans and preachers rape children and blame it on liberal groomers! Where Hunter Biden is a fit subject for a Congressional inquiry but Donald Trump is not a fit subject for a criminal trial! Where crappy propaganda cartoons are school history lessons! So if you want to get along in this cartoon universe, then [to LEO] you go wash out your mouth with soap, and [to LAYLA] you get busy pumping out babies before I get Disney to sue your ass for this Kim Possible rip-off!
LAYLA: OK, OK, Mr. Douglass. I hear what you’re saying, and my response is — go fuck yourself.
[LAYLA pulls out a torch and sets fire to some of the shitty backdrops. LEO spraypaints “ACPAB” on a wall]
LAYLA and LEO: All Cartoon Patriots are Bastards! All Cartoon Patriots are Bastards!
DOUGLASS: Goddamn this shitty animation, I can’t do nothin’ about it.
THOMAS: Lotsa luck, Fred, I’m off on another cruise!
[THOMAS disappears as DOUGLASS struggles to move.]
“Prager U doesn’t pay its animators” LOL.
It’s a hard row to hoe for conservatives, when about 70% of the country hates their actual political policies. The only possible solution is a two-pronged approach: restrict and repress voting – fuck the consent of the governed – and try to turn the generation that follows Gen Z into citizens of Idiocracy so in about 15 or 20 years they may actually vote for Republicans.
It isn’t really much of a plan, but it’s the only one they’ve got.
School cartoons have fallen a long way from “Hemo the Magnificent,” the way a generation of doctors learned about red and white blood cells. The combination of an 8000 teacher shortage and introduction of PragerU in Florida promises a state population of future adults who think Abe Lincoln was a tyrant who got what he deserved.