We’ve always been a littleweirded out by the whole concept. These days, it’s gotten completely out of hand, from death-worshiping cutie-pies to totally cool slow jams.

Let’s begin the week with a contemplation of one of recent history’s oddest cultural phenomena: Pokemon. The original concept, stripped to its core, is creepy in itself: the chronicles of an unsupervised child, wandering the countryside so he can trap exotic baby animals, stuff them into plastic balls that are far too small for them, and release them only to fight other imprisoned baby animals until they become strong and battle-hardened enough to grow into larger, even more dangerous and violent animals that are even better at fighting each other. Kind of a Winter’s Soldier for the pet-fighting set.

But there’s something about the colorful, collectible, relentlessly cheerful execution of Pokemon that allows us to forgive its grotesque nature. Over the years it’s been a wildly popular set of games, a cartoon series, a trading card deck, a clutch of films, and on and on. And once you’ve heard its diabolically chipper theme song, it will not leave your head. It’s as if your skull has become a Pokeball and the Pokesong slowly eating your Pokebrain.

Recently a couple of latter-day Pokemon artifacts have crossed our desks, and we share them now just to illustrate how deeply the phenomenon has entered our culture.

First there’s the whole issue of the Cubone. Among the many mega-bizarre Pokemon, this is among the weirdest: an apparently cute li’l bear-cub of a creature that wears its mother’s skull as a helmet or headdress, and will not remove it.

Some believe it to be the mutant of yet another pokemon; in its evolved form the mother-skull seems to merge with the beast itself. It’s all a little unclear, but one thing’s certain: it’s weeeird.

Is this creature somehow related to the kangeskhan? What does it look like under the skull-mask? And what strange compulsion drives it to wear its own mother’s skull?

And we’re not the only ones who think so. This special call for internet charity understands the grand guignol of Pokemon, chews on it a bit, and comes up with:

 … and yet there’s more. We have to accept the fact that the damn Pokemon theme song will not leave us…but maybe it can be transformed into a more palatable version. Having the 90’s slow jam version stuck in our head isn’t nearly as awful…

It’s been eighteen years since the first Pokemon video game appeared in Japan. And though it may be at alow ebb in some quarters, we know the truth: Pokemon never die. They just hid in the dark between bouts, and emerge after a period of silence and rest…stronger and more dangerous than ever.

Pleasant pokeDreams.