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It’s a ray gun! PEW! PEW! PEW!
In the first portion of this podcast, Ben and I run through our thoughts on censorship in cartoons and other mediums. We get a little ranty. We touch on reactionary censorship in cartoons, video games, and motion pictures. Our position is that it’s not right to erase history. In the second segment, Tom Revor joins us to give us his thoughts on the matter.
Topics:
Gary Owens is ALIVE!
James Rolfe presents: Scat Hat
“It’s Nerf or NOTHIN’!!!”
Self-censorship is BULLSHIT!
“Stop, or I’ll show my badge!”
Violence in animation: east vs. west
Using Lucasfilm computers to erase OJ from The Naked Gun
Catcher In The Rye
Cartoon PSAs
Pew-pew guns
Erasing Chris Benoit
Layla’s coda
Video games
King Kong and Son Of Kong
Shrapnel would have killed the parachuting GI Joe pilots
One of many scenes that were cut from the 1938 re-release of King Kong. Kong was sanitized in an era in which hyper-sensitive idiots wanted to play nanny. Sadly, people like this still exist.
A scene that GI Joe fans are far too familiar with
From the infamous Pokemon gun episode. Never seen in America.
We are NOT suggesting that 4Kidz should have put this in the American version of Pokemon. This is just here for laughs.
Filmation cartoons put these PSAs at the end of every show to sanitize the violence in the cartoon a bit. Still, would you take moral advice from a klepto?
Pew! Pew!
Pew! Pew! Pew!
Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew!
Good show. Censoring cartoons, or other media for that matter, is often just what you said, a means to take the pressure off of the content provider/owner. To say, “Look. We did something.” If children aren’t seeing violence in cartoons, they’re seeing it elsewhere. As you said, children watch violent movies. The new Batman movies are violent movies, but young children show up to watch them…with their parents! The studio markets toys related to the films to children too. Parents need to be aware that some cartoons are not ideal for their children, which is why we have a ratings system for the parents who can’t look at some cartoons and recognize that they’re probably not intended for four year-olds. And there will always be those in society who are mentally unstable. It’s unfortunate, but few of them will actually act out like this guy in Aurora did. Some of these people just want to blame something but themselves, and the media latches onto the blames like a parasite. It’s a simple answer, and people want that. Unfortunately, things are often never simple and the problem is drawn from a multitude of factors, the least of which, is the media they consumed: video games, cartoons, movies, comic books, TV shows, books, social media, etc.
Furthermore, I hate that we’re censoring movies, TV shows, and other media to remove things that are offensive to some people. Since today is 9/11, let’s talk about the removal of the towers from TV shows and cartoons. The episodes are either not shown, or the scene(s) removed. Now, I understand the sensitivity, but is the answer erasing the images of the towers from media, as though to forget that they once existed as part of the recognizable NYC skyline? We’re taking things too far. I could go on, but I’ll go for now. Maybe I’ll come back to this again later.
BTW, have you recorded that Ghostbusters episode yet? If not, I might be interested in guesting.
Ghostbusters? You got it. Is this Sunday okay to record?
What time? Sunday’s are usually good for me, except for late evening. You can contact me through facebook unless you can see my email from posting here, then you can just email me and we’ll work out the details. I’d be happy to join the discussion.
I got the King Kong Tin. I did get Son of Kong later; it was sort of disappointing.
I’m glad you brought up the Gargoyles episode. It was probably the best way guns have been treated in a daytime cartoon.
Censoring is never the answer. I can only hope we learn eventually.