This little asshole can never hang onto his nuts. I am positive this is a metaphor for something.

This Thanksgiving was to see the airing of the newest installment of Pliocene-Quarternary glacial period family entertainment, this time a holiday extravaganza titled, “Ice Age: The Quest to Sell Toys Again This Year.” Because nothing warms the yuletide diapers of kids from one to ninety-two like natural global disaster and the constant sub-conscious threat of species-wide extinction that backdrops everything Ray Romano touches.

For all I know, that shit aired, but I don’t know, for two reasons. One: because I have recently relocated to a country in which literally all cartoons are translated into Spanish. Two: Because, fuck Ice Age, that’s por que.

The core of the first movie seemed to be the unlikely fellowship of Ice Age era creatures, sporting the voices of comedians of varying talent that are living in an era directly preceding the next Ice Age. And like the meeting of these comedians, the characters (a mammoth, a saber-toothed tiger, an ugly rat thing, and something else I think) come together for basically the same reason: nothing better to do until they die. Good message for kids, I’m down.

Then somewhere in this blandly amusing pile of family tripe, something went horribly wrong. Before we discuss this, yes, I am aware that it’s a fucking cartoon, and I need to not overthink it. I am also aware that the films make a feeble attempt to cover their asses on the issue. But I invite you to think of the kids when you realize that, no matter what contrived justification the writers of this franchise use, the second movie involved saving an Eskimo baby (or something), and then the third installment had something to do with dinosaurs. All the while, you must be this tall to ride the illumination train.

Ice Age, do us a favor and stop confusing kids, you bastards. Half of the

Oh, come on, bro. This kid already looks retarded and you took him to the creation museum?

juvenile population of the US gets that kind of noise from their militant, ignorant, abusive Christian parents and teachers, and almost a century of cartoons has shown us that kids listen even more intently to goofy animated rats. Kids aren´t stupid. The first thing we teach kids is how to count, and three is the first number they get to. If they see in Ice Age 3 prehistoric mammals characters interacting with dinosaurs, and if 3 is indeed greater than 2 like the nanny taught them, then you can’t put friggin’ humans in Ice Age 2! Yes, even if the dinosaur was frozen for years or something, again, because it’s a movie for kids. Basic algebra before abstract concepts like cryogenics, a subject which most grown-ass adults can’t wrap their heads around.

But wait, they don’t stop there! I probably could have finagled a way to watch “Ice Age: You’ll Buy the DVD If Your Kid Throws a Big Enough Fit in Best Buy,” if only because I am a sucker for Christmas specials. If you’re not, there’s something severely wrong with you. I refused to put in the effort to watch this one because, right there in the be-Spanglished preview, it shows the ugly little rat character being visited by Santa Claus.

"Where I´m from, you´re extinct."

God dammit! Haven’t you done enough damage, Ice Age? It’s like you gave a lethal dose of old-timey laudanum to a blind giraffe, and gave it until it died to put together your historical timeline. A couple thousand years before the birth of Christ, a distinctly Coca-Cola Macy’s Ex-Lax Christmas icon is distributing charity and good will and figgy pudding to talking animals? For no reason? Was Santa just the neighborhood eccentric, handing out candy and happy in his relative obscurity before Jesus called him up to the big leagues? What was his justification for breaking into homes and stealing baked goods before he found religion? Seriously, if Santa existed before Jesus, and performed basically the same function as he does now, then why is a third of the world so confused about who we ought to be worshipping here?

Look, nobody forced you to pick the Ice Age. You chose a global barren wasteland as a setting to entertain children in, that’s an admittedly lumpy-ass bed you now need to sleep in. Don’t crawl into the beds of our sons and daughters and harm them in ways they won’t realize until they’re 26. Just because you ran out of ideas for good stories involving lifeless, structureless frozen desert doesn’t mean you have to take it out on the kids. One of these days, a generation is going to have to emerge that instinctively understands why mammals, people, dinosaurs, and mythical religious elves can’t exist in the same place, and you’re just pushing that day further and further back. There will, however, never be a day in which talking animals are not a good idea. If you don’t dig on talking animals, you have no imagination.