Cathy's World: Jackie Chan

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- That Jackie Chan, he's the man!

Ratings for Saturday morning cartoons have been generally flat and getting flatter. But Kids' WB's "Jackie Chan Adventures" quickly became the top new animated show when it premiered last year, soon expanding to weekday afternoons as well as Saturday mornings.

And now Kids' WB, Sony Pictures Family Entertainment and Time for Kids Magazine have joined forces for something called the "Jackie Chan Adventures Wellness Initiative," an in-school health program being offered this fall to more than 4 million kindergarten-through-sixth-grade students across the country.

Kids' WB has also introduced a series of public service announcements, or PSAs, as they're known in the trade, in connection with the new health campaign. PSAs are those earnestly helpful spots -- talk to your kids, appreciate diversity, don't smoke -- that remind viewers the nanny box really does know best.

Except, of course, PSAs are inherently rather ridiculous, and you always wonder how seriously the audience takes them. I remember a couple of years ago, when the networks were in hot water for letting the White House insert anti-drug messages in show storylines. This reduced their federal obligation to give away costly airtime to PSAs.

TV executives responded to the fallout by talking a lot about responsible programming and its "pro-social" messages. Jamie Kellner, who then ran the WB and now heads Turner Broadcasting System, another arm of the gigantic AOL Time Warner media octopus, discussed this at the time at a WB press conference.

I asked Kellner if the thought ever occurred to him that the very special "Dawson's Creek" of today might not be the kitschy "Reefer Madness" of tomorrow. Because after all, people do laugh at these things.

"You laugh at them?" Kellner responded with distaste.

I guess you've sunk pretty low when you're made to feel cravenly cynical by a network executive. But as long as I'm on my way to hell I might as well dive straight down to my next thought, which is that the slack-jawed expression, passive demeanor and mindless snacking of the drug abuser are not always easy to distinguish from those of someone who simply watches too much TV.

And even though encouraging children to lead healthier lives is certainly a worthy goal in this age of rampant childhood obesity, not everyone is enthusiastic about in-school marketing.

Disney, for instance, is widely admired in the advertising industry for how skillfully the company cross-markets its many products. Teachers in elementary schools near Disney's Burbank studios began noticing this several years ago, not always happily.

"They told us we were going to meet afterwards for a science assembly," a Burbank teacher once complained to me, about seeing her class used as a focus group for a proposed half-hour children's science show. "But rather than asking afterwards, 'What did you learn about Mars?' it was, 'Would you buy "Ricky Rocket" pajamas?'"

Well, I suppose there are worse things in the world than a cartoon version of Jackie Chan telling kids to exercise and eat right. Maybe it's the least he can do, especially after letting little plastic toy versions of himself help sell sodas and fat-soaked junk food at Burger King earlier this year.

Personally, I prefer live-action Chan. In fact, I'm a big fan: I ran out to see "Rush Hour 2" almost as soon as it opened last summer. But, as the 47-year-old star pointed out at the Kids' WB press conference, his cartoon self can do stunts a lot longer than he can.

"It's my dream always to be a cartoon character because cartoon goes forever," Chan said, adding that he probably has only about five more years of martial arts movies ahead of him.

How many bones has he broken over the years? "I really cannot remember," Chan said. "I cut, break, broken, broken, teeth are gone, jaws, shoulders cracked, broken, twist, twist ..." And that's not even counting the regular smacks he got as a child at martial arts school in Hong Kong.

"I remember when I was eating rice, I dropped one small rice on the table, my teacher grabbed my throat," Chan recalled cheerfully. "From that day until now, I never drop one rice on the table because you remember. Young children right now, they drop everything. You try one slap -- pow! -- they never do it again. But you can't!"

The subject of Kids Today narrowed in on Chan's own son, a college student in California ("he's ABC, American-born Chinese," Chan noted), who slouches and leaves dirty socks around the house and dresses like someone in a rap video.

"Look at my boy now, walking like this," said Chan in disgust, imitating a sort of insolent, Mr. Natural-type gait. "I really want to beat him! But in America ..." His voice trailed off in a sort of resigned, what-can-you-do? sigh.

At this point the WB executives in attendance got a little nervous.

"That was a joke, right?" one of them said.

"No ... I didn't!" Chan responded soothingly. "But really, I hope my movies can educate all children," he added, realizing that a change of subject was in order.

"I never do tattoo things and dye my hair and take a cigarette, because children, they really learn from you. I love action; I hate violence, but the only thing I can do is action film. You want me to make a movie like, what, 'Kramer vs. Kramer'?"

Then Chan was off, clickety-clicking a little plastic Burger King version of himself above his head as he marched out of the room.