But Bodily Fractures Are OK?

I’m sorry, but I have to say something about this.

I’m opposed to smoking also, and I’m glad that it will be edited out of the cartoons in question, but please allow me to point something out.

“Tom and Jerry” was easily the most violent cartoon I ever remember watching when I was growing up. If I were to sit down and watch many of them all over again (which probably would numb my brain in much the same way as trying to endure a George W. Bush press conference), I could probably assemble a catalog of ways in which torture could be inflicted on one of God’s creations.

We were much more concerned with the young one imitating the violent behavior of any program he watched in his earliest years than we were about whether or not he chose to try and smoke a cigarette after Tom tried to hit Jerry with a plank tipped with a nail in the end and accidentally clubbed himself in the head instead (or after Tom inadvertently gave himself a dynamite suppository).

I mean, I managed to watch these shows while I was growing up and I turned out to be reasonably normal (a judgment call, I’ll admit). I’m just glad I didn’t have one of these holier-than-thou types worrying too much about bad influences and trying to get programs banned from the air instead.

As I said, though, I’ll cut them a bit of slack on the smoking. But if someone tries to edit anything from “The Three Stooges,” I’ll have an eye-gouge ready for them (nyuk, nyuk).