Cartoons can't smoke no more

[D'Snowth]

Boy I always thought it was a pretty stupid edit in the movie Dragnet for network TV the way they showed people like Joe smoking, yet they cut out, or edited scenes where people actually reached for a pack of cigarettes.

 

[anytimepally]

these groups are becoming overbearing nazi wanna bes

please refrain from comparing people to nazis.. it seems to be the new hip thing to do to call everyone Hitlers or nazis.. we're not talking about genocide here... advocating non-smoking cartoons is far more tame than anything the nazis did.. please keep that in mind

 

[Winslow Leach]

Boy I always thought it was a pretty stupid edit in the movie Dragnet for network TV the way they showed people like Joe smoking, yet they cut out, or edited scenes where people actually reached for a pack of cigarettes.

Really? I try to avoid watching network TV edits of any movie...I learned that from watching a few of the Bond movies on ABC. You wouldn't believe the stuff they cut out to squeeze in more commercials...sometimes the entire pre-credits sequence would be gone! I never knew Goldfinger had that cool opening ("shocking!") until I got it on DVD!

 

[Drtooth]

Oops... well, everyone does it and no one really complains.

I really should call them Mao's Secret police or something next time. Well, the ones concerned with censorship.

But I feel that these groups are waving their power about way too much and just staying fringe groups that do more to protect kids of others than their own. Know that I mean? I mean, it's nice to show concern, and I don't expect orgies of blood in cartoon shows for the 7-12 market... but when they do more to get cartoon guns off TV than real guns off the streets, it makes my blood boil. There's one town in Boston that is completely ravaged by gun Violence due to gangs. Wouldn't it be nice if groups went after the GANGS, and not after Batman's Joker, who's a bad guy you're not supposed to emulate anyway?

As a cartoonist you hear censorhip horror stories, and they're pretty brutal. I reffer of course to Ren and Stimpy, for example.

 

[anytimepally]

but when they do more to get cartoon guns off TV than real guns off the streets, it makes my blood boil. There's one town in Boston that is completely ravaged by gun Violence due to gangs. Wouldn't it be nice if groups went after the GANGS, and not after Batman's Joker, who's a bad guy you're not supposed to emulate anyway?

I completely agree with you here, but for them it's much easier to fight anyone else than to fight the NRA and that's who they'd have to deal with in any attempt to remove guns from the streets.. the NRA has the most powerful lobby in the country and as long as money talks more loudly than outrage over gun violence, a battle to get guns off the street is not winnable in a meaningful, truly beneficial way... of course that doesn't mean they shouldn't try, but it does mean they're much less likely to, which is a shame, especially since the expiration of the assault weapons ban

 

[Teheheman]

Actually, what they SHOULD do, instead of editing stuff like this out of TV and editing guns out of shows, is to get parents to do something like Talk to their kids about the dangers of smoking and why smoking is bad. These are the same people who let TV teach our kids and then chastise it when they do something we don't like. WE should be responsible, they are OUR kids. They aren't the responsibility of these parents that wanna censor everything. There is a thing called a remote control. If you don't like it, change the channel, or make your kids go outside and play. If you don't like anything on TV, they have things called VCRs or DVD players, you can get a kid friendly DVD like, say, Sesame Street or the Muppet Show or something that kids can watch. You can't protect your kids from life by TV because they might actually do the stuff that you're trying not to get them to do. Think about it, you shell your kids away from drugs, they're gonna wanna try it because it's taboo. They wanna see what the big deal about it is. You do the same thing to smoking, and you got the same result. I don't smoke, but I'm against this 110%.

Daniel

 

[anytimepally]

What? Parents talking to their kids? You mean parents actually parenting? .. I'll believe it when I see it

 

[CensoredAlso]

Well I do agree, I don't always like it when people in this country use the words "Nazis" or "dictators" etc. It's not that big a deal, but we in the US don't understand the meaning of those words, we just throw them around. The problems we have don't compare to the problems other countries have.

But I also agree that TV shouldn't get so much of the blame when kids behave badly. I do think TV should have some responsibility for what they show to kids, especially since it's rapidly getting worse! But first and foremost, it should begin with the parents. If the parents were able to lay down the law, their kids would know not to copy the things they see on TV.

As much as I like the idea of Sesame Street, it annoys me when people put so much emphasis on it. Television shouldn't be your kids sole teacher, even if it's a good one. But to defend parents, it's harder to find the time to raise kids. Both parents need to work, or sometimes mothers are stuck raising their kids alone. It's interesting that a lot of kids shows (such as Fairly Odd Parents) are started to reflect that; kids needing their frequently absent parents.

 

[Drtooth]

You must be a fan of my posts, dude... i say that exact thing all the time.

We're dangerously close to not letting cartoon characters eat junk food any more. We can't even have cartoon characters on cereal boxes anymore. And are all the children in the country suddenly becoming thin? No!

Way I see it, there ARE kids that do light up... juvenile delinquents that only want to do it to be bad. I recall writing something for my sister's comic (she does one, it's so cute) where the main character smokes ONLY because she's angry at her mother. And she doesn't like it.

I don't see how turning 2 seconds of a character in a film smoking into a porno, or just sanitizing reality is gonna help. I mean, you could make every single cartoon show and movie nonviolent and unrelatable and there will still be gangs and wars.

Besides, there are worse things that can go into that part of the body... I'll cut it off there so I don't sound vulgar.

 

[CensoredAlso]

I think it's true, sanitizing things so they look cute and harmless isn't necessarily a good thing. It's like the Stepford Wives; they're pretty and colorful and sweet, but there's nothing under the surface. (And I'm sorry but I see some of the same thing in Elmo's World).

Then there's shows like South Park, which some people dismiss as sick and horrible. But while it does have naughty language, it also tackles important issues in insightful and brilliant ways.

What I'm saying is, good doesn't always come in a pretty package. As they said in Into the Woods, "Nice is different than good."

But I'm going to unpopularly say that I'm glad they're cracking down on bad eating habits. It's not about being thin and pretty (at least it shouldn't be), it's about prolonging your life.