Friday Fun - WWWTP, Cartoons!

Anyone out there watch Adventure Time? The animated show, currently airing on Cartoon Network, follows the adventures of a boy and his talking dog in the magical Land of Ooo.

(Bear with me, I've only seen this episode)

Source: Cartoon Network

While flipping through the channels, I happened to land on a rather new episode, called "Goliad." It involves one of the main characters - a synthetic biologist? - spawning a giant pink Sphinx from a mixture of DNA, 'chemicals,' chalk dust, and an old tooth. But that's not what caught my eye: check out the prop chalkboards set up in the "lab" - those are resonance structures on there!

(Ironically, though the characters understand electron movement for the carbonate anion, and can apparently clone life forms, the resonance structure for benzene escapes them. But, hey, this adventure occurs in a castle shaped like a wedding cake, so...caveat lector)

Everything's bigger in Texas.

One tiny problem: this chemistry know-how seems to disappear between takes. Here's another clip from the same episode, where the previously-correct carbonate has mysteriously grown another bond.

Most kids watching this will just gloss over it, assuming some mad-scientist gobbledygook. But, those of us in the WWWTP camp just can't help ourselves.

Happy Friday! Go watch some (scientifically accurate) cartoons!