No cartoon for old men (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

No cartoon for old men

11:11am Tuesday 26th February 2008

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Okay, so the big draw in our house at the moment is Ben 10. If you're not aware of this, it's the latest US cartoon to grace British Saturday mornings, and in a nutshell it's about a 10-year-old boy called Ben who finds an alien "watch" called the Omnitrix which allows him to transform into ten different alien superheroes.
http://www.staticmultimedia.com/images/ben10-195.jpg

It's also a very neat marketing ploy, because why sell just one or two action figures to kids when you can sell them at least ten different ones?

Charlie (four) and Alice (three) are both mad on Ben 10, and as the latest sweetener for good behaviour they were awarded a small Ben 10 figure each.

Charlie got a big, orange, eyeless, slobbering beast called Wildmutt or something similar, while Alice stayed true to gender stereotyping and received a Gwen action figure - Gwen being Ben's cousin and voice of reason in the show. Please keep up.

However, Alice has been asking if she can have an action figure of the third main character in Ben 10 - Ben and Gwen's Grandpa, who drives them round in a big mobile home and shares their adventures. (That's him on the left).

http://www.animationinsider.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10002/group.PNG

However, such a figure doesn't exist. This seems like rank ageism on the part of the manufacturers, and I am hereby beginning an online petition to demand that Bandai create a Grandpa action figure.

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