My Uncle Robby makes cartoons. I guess that’s kinda cool and stuff, but he’s kind of a dork and I wouldn’t want him to come talk to my class at school or anything.

He wants me to tell you all about what I like on TV and how I decide what to watch, and anything else I can think of about watching TV.

I’ll be nine in February, and it seems like in the last few years there are a gazillion more cartoons on TV (even more than when I was young), and they’re on all the time. Mostly they suck (Uncle Robby says I can say whatever I want).

There are a couple good cartoons, though, that I like to watch. My uncle says I shouldn’t say which ones they are-just in case they’re not the ones he makes. But didn’t he just tell me I could say whatever I want? That’s what I don’t like about grown-ups.

I really hate the cartoons that are slow and stupid, and, you know, when they’re not about anything. I like them either to be really, really scary, or really, really funny.

But I also like to watch shows when they are about someone whose feelings get hurt or who has a problem and doesn’t know what to do (like if he saw his teacher do something wrong but is afraid to tell on her), or when someone doesn’t do the right thing (like taking money from their mom’s purse and then something bad happens to them because of it), or if there is an animal that’s going to be hurt and has to be rescued. But I don’t like to watch cartoons that just have stupid stuff in them like people fighting all the time.

I also like the shows that aren’t cartoons but with real people. I also get to see a lot of movies-mostly we rent them and they’re usually better than TV. Some of them are kind of scary, but they’re cool too. I know my parents don’t like it when I watch things that have a lot of people fighting and getting killed and stuff, but I don’t care as long as it’s a cool movie with a neat hero. We’re not allowed to have R-rated movies at my house, and I know I’m not supposed to watch `em, but sometimes I see them anyway at my friend’s house.

I find out about most cool things from my friends at school. I’m not really sure how they find out or where it starts. Sometimes it’s from something on TV.

Once, I had to go down to a building where there were a bunch of other kids and one of those mirrors where there was someone on the other side who we couldn’t see! Some man talked to us about ideas for new TV shows and showed us some new cartoons, and asked what we thought and stuff. I remember I gave one of the shows an ‘A+’ and said I would watch it, but then when it really came on TV a few months later, I only watched it once or twice. There was another show I really hated cause the bad guy was so mean, so I gave it a bad grade. I still hate it, but I watch it a lot `cause even though I hate the bad guy, I like to see him lose and get really, really mad.

I know I’m supposed to tell you why I like some shows and what’s good about cartoons and how I decide what to watch and stuff like that. But the truth is…I can’t `cause I promised to never really tell any grown-up that stuff. `Cause I belong to a secret club for kids-everyone I know is in it. We made a promis (and then swore by spit) that we would never tell our secrets to grown-ups. When they ask us, we just tell them a lot of stuff we think they want to hear, but it’s never the real stuff. We swore not to talk about that.

That way, grown-ups’ll never figure us out. Never. Especially Uncle Robby…

The Masked Nephew’s uncle is Robby London, executive VP, creative affairs at DIC Entertainment, as well as a former writer and an Emmy Award-winning producer whose current productions include Sonic Underground, Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century and Sabrina The Animated Series.