Smoke's no joke for Tom and Jerry (Scenes to be edited from Cartoons)

[The Straight Story]

Smoke's no joke for Tom and Jerry

Children's TV channel Boomerang is to edit scenes from Tom and Jerry cartoons where characters are shown smoking.

The move follows an investigation by media watchdog Ofcom into a viewer's complaint that the vintage animations were not appropriate for young viewers.

The watchdog recognised the "historic" cartoons were made at a time "when smoking was more generally accepted".

However, Boomerang will only edit those cartoons where smoking appears to be "condoned, acceptable or glamorised".

Two such cartoons include Texas Tom from 1950 and Tennis Chumps from 1949.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5271470.stm

Now edit out the violence and there will be about 2 seconds per episode :)

[Blue_In_AK]

1. Oh, please.... n/t

[Deja Q]

2. In today's climate, more children would look at the cat and mouse and wonder

"With all that running around they do and they're not coughing to death with emphysema?! And how come when the cat gets chopped up he's fine and happy in the next scene?"

Hell, if I had a child, I'd make him/her/it watch the unedited ones just to know the paaaaaaaaaain of what we had to go through and not get addicted to.

[Cooley Hurd]

3. The original "Itchy & Scratchy..."

You're right about the violence - which is MORE harmful to young minds than the soking scenes ever were.

[madrchsod]

4. watching tom and jerry smoking did`t influence me

it was my friend that had some smokes...

[The Straight Story]

5. Well, there are some who will tell you it did

:)

[brentspeak]

6. As long as don't censor the DVD releases, as they did a couple of years ago

[Feron]

7. I hate censorship.

Cartoons from yesteryear should be left unaltered. Erasing bigotry and possibly objectionable content does not make the problem go away.

If anything it presents a great opportunity to talk to children about the erroneous attitudes that were once popular and accepted. And cartoons like Bugs Bunny are great for teaching children about war propaganda and the media.

But most of the time a cartoon is a just a cartoon. Certainly eating a can of spinach will not make huge muscles suddenly appear just as hitting someone over the head with a mallet will not cure a brain injury.

It all boils down to parents doing their job and not being so lazy that they want others to the job for them.

[in_cog_ni_to]

8. This has gone beyond the absurd!

Damn idiots.