All my childhood dreams have come true. Everything I ever wished for as a little kid growing up on the south side of Chicago has finally happened.

When I heard the news, I almost couldn’t believe it. A 24-hour all- cartoon channel? Is it real? Are my eyes, deceiving me? Can this be real? Will I really get to see my main man Droopy more than once a month?

I still remember being about 8 years old and waking up at 7 a.m. on Saturday mornings, turning on the TV, grabbing my mom’s giant-45-gallon-stainless-steel mixing bowl filled with Raisin Bran and milk (Moms didn’t allow none of that Fruity Pebbles stuff in her house) sit in front of the TV and watch the cartoons until either I had to go to the bathroom or I started crying from laughter.

Not only was I the most regular kid on the block, but I was the biggest soggy-cereal-eating child in the neighborhood.

I loved watching the “Transformers,” “SilverHawks,” “the Thundercats,” “Tom and Jerry” “the Superfriends” and, of course, the ever- popular “Voltron.”

When we were kids, we had some incredible cartoons; no, let me rephrase that: we had some incredible television. How many of us remember the “Banana Splits” and the “Great Space Coaster”?

And who out there can remember all the members in the “Hall of Justice” and the “Legion of Doom”? And of course there was “Spetreman.”

We all know we watched “the Flintstones,” “the Jetsons” and “Magilla Gorilla.” I don’t know about you, but I was in the Hanna-Barbera fan club (a card-carrying member, that is.)

Those were the days, when cartoons were funny and kids still had vivid imaginations. It seems like nowadays kids don’t have to do anything but pick up a toy and it does everything for them.

Even video games aren’t what they used to be; everybody has their N-64, Playstation or Saturn. Nobody plays pong or Tron anymore. Give me an old Atari 26 or 5200 and some SuperBreakout or Combat and I’ll be just happy.

Now that I am older, I miss the cartoons even more. This is why the Cartoon Network means so much to me.

But something else I have noticed about the whole cartoon situation is how cartoons today are such rip-offs of those of yesteryear.

It seems like cartoon creators have lost their creativity as well — not unlike the makers of many of our favorite candies from days gone by.

I purchased a box of Jolly Joes the other day and a Laffy Taffy (the chewy candy with the corny jokes in the wrapper), and guess what I saw.

The damned things had the flavors on the front! Now, you may be asking why this upset me. If you are, I’m more worried about you than me.

I’m upset because anybody who has ever eaten Jolly Joes knows what flavor they are. If you don’t know, I’m not telling you because it’s obvious you are stuck in some vacuum somewhere.

What kind of a world do we live in when we have to tell our kids the flavor the candy they are eating? What kind of a world do we live in when people are campaigning against cartoons because they are too violent?

I remember being a kid and watching “the Flintstones” and seeing Fred and Barney drop humongous boulders on their feet, drive cars with their feet and have dinosaurs for pets. My mom told me the difference between cartoons and real life.

We knew people couldn’t fly, we knew Tom wasn’t really cut in half by that axe and we certainly knew the difference between the “Transformers” and the cheap imitation “Go-Bots.” When we were kids our parents told us Voltron wasn’t real, the “Bionic Sixx” was only make believe and “G. I. Joe” was a code name for an elite special missions force.

Animation was clearly different than real life. “Superman” was only something to be on Halloween and “Mr. Magoo” was really the millionaire from Gilligan’s Island.

If you notice, our generation isn’t as imaginative as our parents and we are just more imaginative than today’s kids. Maybe we need to teach more children the “Herculoids” are cool, but they are not real; maybe we need to tell our kids that what we see on TV is not always how real life is.

We could tell them about imagination and how it is the force responsible for “Birdman,” “Hong Kong Fooey,” the “Super Globetrotters,” “Space Ghost” and “Scooby Doo.”

If we remind them about using their imagination and creating things of their own, maybe they won’t need the escape of TV.

If more kids know using their imagination can be a good thing and if more know how to keep imagining into their later years, we will have more success stories on our hands.

We should teach them so they will know. After all, knowing is half the battle.

Yo, Joe!

Later y’all.

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Rhaason Mitchell is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Chicago. He is managing editor of the Daily.