Something For The Kids – Nzinga Blake
Skwigly
If anyone has the ideal name for a presenter of a cartoon channel it is Nzinga (pronounced ‘ZINGA!!) Blake. Which is really, really fortuitous because that is precisely what Nzinga Blake does, every Friday on the US Cartoon network. Her PR blurb trumpets Nzinga as having a ‘bigger than life personality’ (can you actually have a bigger than life personality?) and a ‘sense of humour’ (as opposed to a sense of correct English spelling).
As expected then Nzinga is an effusive and bubbly character, the kind of person with the annoying habit of being able to succeed in anything she really sets her heart on. Born in Sierra Leone she swiftly became a globetrotting child who, via Kenya, ended up appearing on Japanese kids programmes entertaining the masses with, amongst other things, her Creole version of ‘How are you?’. You see other nations really do have better TV than we do! As a child Nzingas animation idols were Bugs Bunny and Tom & Jerry, so there was an innate sense of good taste from an early age. Nzinga was a small child and so very much identified with the tiny but ultimately triumphant Jerry, thus confirming traits in my PhD thesis,’ Are you a Tom or are you a Jerry?’. Returning to the US with a ‘large Japanese cartoon library’ (which presumably comes with an overdrawn anime librarian), Nzinga has surfaced at the Cartoon Network by way of UCLA Film School and she describes her Friday show as a kind of ‘Saturday Night Live’ with cartoons. As well as universal staples such as Johnny Bravo, there are the popular ‘Fosters Home for Imaginary friends’ and ‘Courage, the cowardly dog’, which Nzinga describes as a moral Tom & Jerry (what is so wrong with immoral!?). Coming soon to Cartoon Network are ‘Atomic Betty’, the tale of a dinner lady from Sellafield (probably) and a new, improved and older ‘Powerpuff Girls’. According to Nzinga they are smarter and prettier as opposed to just wrinkled and embittered spinsters.
Nzinga is very supportive of her many fans who include a 35 year old woman who lives alone with her dog and a 45 year old man who lives alone with…well himself really. Hopefully Nzinga can bring these three together one day.
It is clear that Nzinga thoroughly enjoys hosting a cartoon show and who wouldn’t (in my book second only to Kylie Minogues dresser). However, following her globetrotting childhood, Nzinga harbours ambitions to one day write an animation series that would open up American eyes to the world around them. No small ambition from a small person. I wish her well. If anyone can, Nzinga can.