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The 25th Frame

Cartoon violence: The only prescription is more anvil!

After a nice long winter break it's time to get back to writing! Good things happened over the holidays, I'm glad to report. Disneyland was fantastic. My movie theater was fun and inviting. My friends and family were well and many random conversations came out of nowhere. One conversation that stuck with me focused not so much on films, but on another favorite topic of mine: television. I was lamenting the loss of the 90s Nickelodeon shows and my mom took it a step further, voicing her sadness at hardly ever seeing Looney Tunes on air anymore. 

Leave it to your parents to trigger memories from when you were 6.

Before 90s Nickelodeon, there were Looney Tunes; notably my hero Bugs Bunny and his consistently pissed-and-proud-of-it rival, Daffy Ducky. However, if I could not get them, I gladly would have watched Wile E. Coyote fail spectacularly in chasing the Road Runner (*beep* *beep.* I had to.). Unlike most modern cartoon shows (which will remain nameless) that take a half hour on a single plot point, Looney Tunes was able to juggle multiple animated shorts and characters within a Saturday time block that could take up 3 hours of the morning. 60 years later, and these shorts are still the standard in regards to animation, comedy and originality.

So why the hell are they not on the air anymore? If kids cannot watch Bugs, Daffy and the gang, who will they watch?

Well, I can tell you the first answer, but you're probably not going to like it. Looney Tunes are so rarely seen on TV nowadays because they're too violent. That's right folks. Too violent. I'm really not kidding. Some group of parents in the late 90s who stayed at home and had WAY too much time on their hands messed it all up for the rest of us! They could not take the fact that Bugs was constantly getting shot at, or that Wile E. was constantly getting blown up by TNT, or that none of the characters (human or otherwise) were afraid to cross-dress. The mere presence of Yosemite Sam's pistols made them want to cry. After all, the presence of guns and cross-dressing rabbits will have a deep, emotional effect on their children!

Divorce, alcoholism, mental and physical abuse, neglect; these are what come to mind when I think of deep, troubling effects on children. Bugs Bunny? Not so much. The censorship happened quietly, but by the early 2000s, Looney Tunes had been shoved from basic networks to cable networks and shortly thereafter could not be found anywhere, save for the rare marathon on a cartoon-based network nobody can name or find with two hands and a flashlight. Meanwhile, OTHER cartoons have moved in on their territory, sacrificing laughs for morals. It went from anvils being dropped on heads to learning how to love and trust in your friends. I'll tell you, when middle school came around that lesson was dropped from all consciousness in most of my classmates, so good job modern cartoons! I don't want morals in my cartoons; I want slapstick! I want social satire! I want characters that are relatively free of inhibition! I want entertainment!

The Looney Tunes were genius not only because of their comedy, but because of their accessibility. Kids could get a laugh from the actual animation to the eccentric voices, while the social commentary (WWII, baseball, opera, etc) made it accessible for their parents to laugh. It was animated comedy that aged so incredibly well because it was not looking to satisfy a censorship board; it was looking to bring out a smile.

In fact, many of the directors of the 40s and 50s flew in the face of their censors (and often the studios themselves). To them, it was not about walking on egg shells, it was about the overall quality; something that has been lost to cartoons marketed to kids in this day and age. In an era where the likes of “Heroes," “24," “House M.D.,” “True Blood," “The Simpsons," “Family Guy," “Dexter," “Nip/Tuck," “South Park” and “The Bachelor” (which is a mental violence that can never heal) all stalk the networks in prime time, Bugs Bunny is somehow considered far more damaging to the psyche...

Make no mistake, Bugs and the gang are far from dead (thanks to the advent of DVDs). They were here before modern cartoons and will be here long after the fact. It just goes to show that censors of any era, with all their “power," cannot stop the artists of the world; whether they be in film or TV. Drama or comedy. Live action or animated. Censors can try but they will fail.

After all, Bugs and his friends have TNT, guns, a lack of physics and some of the most psychotic traps ever designed. I would prefer they be my friends rather than my enemy.