Animation Censorship --- ARRGGHHH!!!!

Hey Guys and Gals, Coranth here...

I need to rant again. I had a thought whilst I was hanging my washing out.

Now, I'll tell it to you straight:
I like animated things, decent cartoons and Japanese Anime, and animated films and the like (example: 'Titan A.E.' and 'The Iron Giant.'). Let me take you back a bit...

It's sometime in the 1980's. You're a kid, and you've just got home from school. You chuck your school stuff in your room; who gives a shit about homework at the moment, because VOLTRON, THUNDERCATS, ROBOTECH, or some other kickass cartoon is about to start on the 'after-school' TV timeslot! Goddamn... those were the days. Back in the 80's, when computers and video games were all the rage, and even in the 90's, there were some truly awesome cartoons and things on television:

David The Gnome
Dinosaucers
Batman: The Animated Series
Superman: The Animated Series
Spider-Man (1994 TV series)
Spider-Man Unlimited
The Mysterious Cities of Gold
The Real Ghostbusters (Seasons 1 and 2 ONLY)
Thundercats
Transformers
Disney's Gargoyles
Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea
Voltron: Defender of The Universe
X-Men: The Animated Series

ALL OF THESE WERE GREAT... and nearly all of them weren't really "kiddy-friendly", or they dealt with 'deeper' things. X-Men, for instance, dealt with all kinds of mature things, among them Prejudice and Racism, etc.

Today, however... as far as I know, NONE of these truly awesome animated cartoons are broadcast anymore. If you want em' you have to either get them via Bit-Torrent, or PAY to watch them on fucking CABLE.

Nowadays, animated things just plain SUCK. It's either Pokemon (BLEH!) or other crap animated via CGI which looks WORSE than the film "Toy Story" (an excellent film, BTW). No more 'proper' hand drawn / animated cartoons like Transformers, or Voltron; you won't find things like that on TV today folks. Oh, no.

But why? Why WHY? We're all smart, we who are CF. We know why? CENSORSHIP! CENSORSHIP! CENSORSHIP! CENSORSHIP! Fucking "concerned parents" (read: worthless, fuckwit breeder-moos) wanting to protect their "ickle pweshuss chyldwen" from what they believe to be violent and/or scary things... things that might (GASP!) "scar their widdle baybees for life!"

Lord, fuck almighty, I HATE IT!

"Nowadays, animated things just plain SUCK. It's either Pokemon (BLEH!) or other crap animated via CGI which looks WORSE than the film "Toy Story" "

OH yes!!! What's even worse are the old-time 'toons that got reborn in CGI. Tried to watch a new Popeye movie in such a fashion...BLEACH! Some things computers still can't do worth a hoot.

(LOL, while I'm on that subject even good ol' Popeye is getting censored some places for having too much fistfighting!)

Not even the CUTE retro cartoons are safe Coranth. Believe me people like that fruitcake Phil Phillips still have a heck of a following. There's been a resurgence in paranoia against anything remotely magical recently due to Harry Potter. We knowledgeable Christians are still butting heads over people who think that He-Man and She-Ra will turn your kids into super-narcissists, the Care Bears indoctrinate Hinduism to children, and My Little Pony encourages witchcraft and the occult.

Yes, I am serious.

I'll give you what I can remember off the top of my head; our church library has another book very similar in such nutty content.

Care Bears---Guilty of using magical items, magical powers (that 'stare they do) and their different colors have some hidden meaning. Several bad guys who resort to rather dark means on occasion don't help matters either...although Phil STILL goes *miles* past the line of reason.

MLP---The three witches in the original movie. 'Nuff said. Also a magical locket and ponies with 'magic powers' such as a unicorn who can teleport herself.

Believe you me I'm just scratching the surface here. That book goes on in that vein so long it's mind boggling.

Cartoons from the 80s and 90s were undoubtedly the best. There was little censorship and most of them had pretty good stories and some nice humor for both kids and adults. Anyone here ever watch Ren and Stimpy? Or the Animaniacs? Both of those had kid jokes and adult jokes and they were wonderful shows.

I recently acquired all the episodes of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, and at the end of each episode, there's a small segment where Sonic gives advice. In one such segment, it shows Tails (his child sidekick) smoking. In another, it shows two of the enemies drinking (the purposes of the segments were to explain how smoking and alcohol respectively weren't meant for kids). You think you'd ever see anything like that on television now? Hell no...at least, not without having to pay extra for them (if you wanna be all legal and stuff).

Shit, parents even attack cheery little Spongebob by suggesting he's gay. Spongebob is totally aimed at kids, and yet Moomies nationwide find a problem with it. You can't win with these people, and all I see now are shows with incredible animation that are about completely retarded things.

Here's the funny part...you need to pay extra for channels like Boomerang and Nickelodeon 2, but channels that have more adult-oriented stuff (like Comedy Central -- The Man Show, anyone?) is on basic cable. And I know for a damn fact that kids stay up until all hours of the night because their parents haven't the spinal capacity to tell them to get to bed.

Cambion:

"Cartoons from the 80s and 90s were undoubtedly the best. There was little censorship and most of them had pretty good stories and some nice humor for both kids and adults. Anyone here ever watch Ren and Stimpy? Or the Animaniacs? Both of those had kid jokes and adult jokes and they were wonderful shows."


FUCK, yes! Ren and Stimpy For The WIN!!!! And Animaniacs was cool... Wakko's belched serenades...

"Cartoons from the 80s and 90s were undoubtedly the best. There was little censorship and most of them had pretty good stories and some nice humor for both kids and adults. Anyone here ever watch Ren and Stimpy? Or the Animaniacs? Both of those had kid jokes and adult jokes and they were wonderful shows."

So true! My husband loves "The Animaniacs"...I wish they still had that one on TV. We have digital cable with all the extra cartoon channels, but no such luck. :-(

I am a great lover of animated cartoons and yes, I am sad to see today's cartoons go downhill, too.

Even sadder is how America thinks of animation as rugrat fodder and that it better be dumbed down for the tots. Well, great cartoons do a great service for kids being introduced into entertainment and guess what? Parunts today are doing a great disservice for kids by overprotecting them from everything, animated cartoons included!

BTW, I am a big Transformers fan and the old cartoon was SO good it is currently enjoying immense popularity among ADULTS who grew up on it! (That's why we have live-action Transformers movies that are not really kid-friendly at all as well as a great Transformers Animated cartoon, too.)

(Hey, you notice that many of old cartoon characters, like Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny are childfree, too?XD)

I hear you Banshee, I hear you. I, too love Transformers, and I "found" the first season of this awesome show on the 'net. It now resides on DVD within my library.

As for the old cartoons being brat-free, I noticed that, too!
To modify the words of the Great and Honoured Elmer Fudd:

"Be vewwy vewwy quiet; I'm hunting kiddies..."

I am a huge SOUTH PARk fan, i have all the seasons on dvd and i go to sleep every nite while watching them, i also have the beavis and butthead dvds

cfhistorian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "Cartoons from the 80s and 90s were undoubtedly
> the best. There was little censorship and most of
> them had pretty good stories and some nice humor
> for both kids and adults. Anyone here ever watch
> Ren and Stimpy? Or the Animaniacs? Both of those
> had kid jokes and adult jokes and they were
> wonderful shows."
>
> So true! My husband loves "The Animaniacs"...I
> wish they still had that one on TV. We have
> digital cable with all the extra cartoon channels,
> but no such luck. :-(



I so agree! The 80's and 90's cartoons rocked! I loved "The Animaniacs!" They were written on a level that entertained both children and adults. (There are some on You Tube.) I've watched cartoons with my niece, and today's cartoons are just retarded and and totally one dimensional. "Sponge Bob" isn't too bad, but the others I've watched with her suck.

I also love "Beavis and Butthead" and "King of the Hill." I have several seasons of both on DVD.

Remember all the old Bugs Bunny cartoons? I remember watching them with my DAD and him laughing his ass off. They were FUNNY!!!! I also remember him telling me those were the ones HE watched as a kid! My dad was born in '42.

Nowadays, those would be way too harsh for the pweshus widdle snowfwakes to watch. Violence might damage their dewicate widdle psyches.

Breeders suck cock, they want to foam pad and shrink wrap the world, because it's everybody else's responsibility to make the world safe for their hatchlings.

We have the "Focus On Family" (A subgroup of American Family Association)) organization to thank for most of the TV movie/show censorship, including animations. They are greatly (if not solely) responsible for shows being moved to 10-11pm,(which I HIGHLY resent, do only the childed go to bed early?") all of those "ratings" next to everything from Lethal Weapon reruns to cooking shows, and "Damn" getting dubbed with "Darn" and "Jesus Christ!", getting dubbed to "Cheese and Crackers", and an escaped gangmember prisoner sleeved out with Swastikas,cross bones and skulls prison tattoos yelling out the dubbed "Go suck on a lemon you traitor!!!!!", as he blows away a drug dealer who ratted him out with an AK47, IF it's shown on regular TV and sometimes on cable at midnight.

Their precious RugRats cartoon is one of the most adult themed animations out there, yet just about every kyd watched that one. They claim that cartoons have some secret agenda to promote withcraft,Judaism, Atheism, homosexuality, violence, premarital sex and other "anti-Christian" famblee values. I think that these religious nuts need to have their TV service DISCONNECTED and only watch their famblee approved Disney movies and religious cartoons and leave the rest of us the hell alone. They PARTICULARLY piss me off when they say shit about SouthPark, which has warnings and ALREADY comes on after Shitford's bedtime. They whine that since it's animated, it will appeal to kyds. Well, LOCK OUT Comedy central,tell the little bastards NO, or turn the damn TV off. No, that's not good enough.

The bottom line is that THEY do not want any of this on the air period, for ANYONE to watch. THEY need to censor what their kyds watch,as ****I***** and any other adult do NOT need our shows censored. This is CLEARLY their problem, not society's. Again, it's all about what THEY want. They wouldn't want anything over pg8 shown regardless if they had kyds, because it's a "sin". They are using the child card to futher their own fundie agenda. I absolutely hate their guts.

http://www.afa.net/about.asp
(scroll down to, "Has AFA made an impact" to get a highlight of some of their agenda)

Oh I love the breeders and their fear of "Witchcraft." OOOOOOH, how awful. As a Pagan, I'm particularly aware of their imaginary fears and hallucinations.

For the ones who think Witchcraft, Paganism, Earth Religions, etc., are all so awful, I like to ask them:

Do you take your kid to Disney or does he/she like the Disney shows, merchandise cartoons, etc.? Do you realize how much MAGIC is in everything of Disney? Hell, their slogan for a while was something to the effect of, "The Magic of Disney." What do they think Cinderella's Fairy God Mother was?

Does your kid believe in Santa Claus? Does it celebrate Christmas?

Does your kid believe in the Easter Bunny? Does it celebrate Easter?

The Tooth Fairy?

Halloween?

I LOVE South Park, I also loved Beavis and Butthead and the Ambiguously Gay Duo!!! And do they have ANY idea how many GAY undertones there are in Spongebob????? That's one of the reasons I LOVE that little yellow dude!!!

I fucking HATE effing censorship. Although I must say, the idea of a huge tattoed gangster shouting "FIDDLESTICKS!!!" has a certain comedy appeal... Anyone here seen the Youtube PG "300" trailer pisstake?
"Our BEES will blot out the sun!"
"Then we will hug in the shade!"
"This is CAKETOWN!!!"
Check it out on Youtube if you haven't seen it, it's hilarious.

As for fundie crazies, if you listen to them, ANYTHING has satanism in it somewhere... I just wish they'd shut their goddamn (gasp!) cakeholes and got on the meds. No magic stories = a very dull childhood.
Oh, and there is no way in hell I'm stopping swearing just because kids are in the vicinity. Those little shits tend to know more swear words than your average adult anyway! And if you don't want them to learn those, keep them the hell away from... well... everyone.
80's cartoons rocked. I remember the Ghostbusters... and I used to love the Duck Tales! These days the only good cartoon I remember seeing is Lilo and Stitch (the very first "movie" style cartoon - they brought out the series later and it SUCKED).

KidFreeLuvnLife said:

"For the ones who think Witchcraft, Paganism, Earth Religions, etc., are all so awful, I like to ask them:

Do you take your kid to Disney or does he/she like the Disney shows, merchandise cartoons, etc.? Do you realize how much MAGIC is in everything of Disney? Hell, their slogan for a while was something to the effect of, "The Magic of Disney." What do they think Cinderella's Fairy God Mother was?"

Alot of these fundies absolutely don't allow their kids to watch Disney movies. When I taught, I would have a behavior reward party once each semester. The kids would vote on several party choices I would give them. In most cases they would vote on a popcorn and movie party. Rated G Disney or Disney-type movies were all that we were approved to show. Every once in a a while I'd get a note or call from a parent forbidding their child from watching the movie. I would still show it, but send the kid to the library to read while the rest of the class partied. The fundie kids soon learned not to tell their parents we were watching a Disney movie, because they were dying to see it too!

On a slightly different note, has anyone noticed how sanitized and cutesy Halloween decorations have become?

I like old Halloween decorations. Back in the 20s and 30s (I grew up in the 70s) decorations were actually scary--the black cats, witches and pumpkins were devilish and edgy. It brought a bit of creepiness to the holiday, (celebrated after dark, no less!) that is missing in the friendly kitty, friendly smiling jack-o-lantern figures of today.

I think this is all part and parcel of parental shucking of what should be THEIR job. We see this in day care, screw y'alls increasing their take-over of parental jobs. (which all of us pay for, except the breeders). Parents do not want to be bothered with actually teaching their loafs any morals, character, anything.

Tiquer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> On a slightly different note, has anyone noticed
> how sanitized and cutesy Halloween decorations
> have become?
>
> I like old Halloween decorations. Back in the 20s
> and 30s (I grew up in the 70s) decorations were
> actually scary--the black cats, witches and
> pumpkins were devilish and edgy. It brought a bit
> of creepiness to the holiday, (celebrated after
> dark, no less!) that is missing in the friendly
> kitty, friendly smiling jack-o-lantern figures of
> today.


I sure have noticed it. Around here, the kyds dress up in Biblical costumes like Jesus, Mary, Moses, or perhaps one of the disciples or an angel. Then instead of parties or door to door trick or treat they have what they call "trunk or treat," which is held in the paking lots at the churches and they line up their cars, fill their trunks up with candy and treats, and each kyd walks by and gets his "Goddie"(not goodie) bag filled. Of course some of the treats are religious crap like little crosses, fortune cookies with scriptures inside,miniature bibles, etc.......They are turning Halloween into some sort of a Christian thing, much like they stole the Christmas tree from the Pagans and OH the lies I could tell you they told me as a child about how a Christmas tree, presents, lights, etc..... are based on Christianity.

Fundies are not very original at all, which isn't the worst of it. They steal traditions, practices, ceremonies, and celebrations from other religions and then after a few years, they claim it as originating from THEIR religion. Religious fundie fanatics are ignorant, self righteous, and STUPID bastards.

. Here is an amusing story from my Uni days... An acquaintance of mine lived in a shared house with, I believe, 4 people. THE NIGHT BEFORE THE FINALS (the poor chap had a 9 o'clock), at MIDNIGHT, the fundie evangelist decides that the house is haunted and proceeds to call a bunch of mates over for an exorcism ritual. They then walk all over the house, chanting hymns and showing lit candles into every corner for the next 2 hours.
If I was my friend I'd have lost it then and there.
As it was, we all ended up giving him lots of advice for lolz - such as dress into your spookiest LARP gear (we were all LARPers in those days) and knock on her window, howling, ets... you get the idea. Alas, he decided it wasn't worth it since he only had a couple of weeks left on the lease. I'd have totally made her life hell, but then again I'm a lot less nice than my friend.

And yes, I reckon you're right, Married with Rabbits - they totally are looking for it. After all, it's a good excuse to attract lots of attention and rant and moan about this world going to hell and everybody in it too, and only themselves being so holy and great and all that.

And don't even talk about fun - their idea of fun is an extra-long Bible reading.

Our Uni had a fundie society - the amusing thing (to most people) was that they were not ratified by the Student's Union even though the Pagan Soc was. This was because their elections were not democratic - they used to chuck a bunch of names into a hat, pray over it and then reach in lottery style to see who the next exec will be. They also made gay members sign a charter that stated that they will not be practicing their sexuality.

"An author wrote a book on people's experiences with Wicca, I am going to have to look that one up."
Ooh, if you do find it, please post! I'm really morbidly curious - the stuff evangelists come up with is really some of the best comedy out there.
By the way, check this out - http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp
It is about the Evils of Dungeons&Dragons Roleplaying game and how it really leads you into evil satanism. This one's infamous...

Another thing I notice is any show that is deemed too "deviant" gets pulled off the air. The last deviant cartoon I remember being on TV was Invader Zim. I would really love to know what Nickelodeon was thinking when they asked Jhonen Vaquez to make a cartoon show - they were asking the creator of "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac" to make a kid's show. Where the fuck is the logic in that? And then they went and banned some of the episodes of Invader Zim anyway because they were inappropriate in one way or another. It's as if Nickelodeon was just looking for someone to pick on, so they took an accomplished artist and built him up just to tear him down.

But you know what? Those cartoons that get pulled for being "too deviant" are often the one that have the largest fan bases. There are TONS of Invader Zim fans, myself included.

The American Family Association are the most intrusive bunch of assclowns this world has ever known, and are completely responsible for the well over %100 percent increase in FCC complaints in the past few years. FCC only investigates complaints and does not actually monitor the airwaves for offensive content. American Family Association uses this system to get what they feel is "impure" off the air through intimidation and not through direct censorship. Person X is Idaho sees something they don't agree with on tv, then they go whining to the AFA. The AFA then organizes hundreds of nosy nellies all over the US to complain, because you see...you don't actually have to have heard/seen the incident to complain, all you have to do is "hear about it". You don't have to submit proof that you saw/heard anything offensive BUT the station has to prove they didn't air it. Basically what ends up happening is stations, programmers and artists end up self-censoring because it's such a fucking bureaucratic hassle to deal with the FCC.

"It truly is the one commonality that every designation of humans you can think of has, there's at least one asshole."
--Me

I don't understand why they get all worked up about trivial stuff like this, yet I don't hear a lot of complaining about all of those suggestive commercials for Cialis, Viagara, etc. Frankly, those commercials gross me out. I watch the news in the evenings, and I swear they show those commercials every five minutes.

Ketchup Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't understand why they get all worked up
> about trivial stuff like this, yet I don't hear a
> lot of complaining about all of those suggestive
> commercials for Cialis, Viagara, etc. Frankly,
> those commercials gross me out. I watch the news
> in the evenings, and I swear they show those
> commercials every five minutes.

Sorry to go off topic, but have you all ever seen the SNL skit for Dr. Porkenheimer's Boner Juice that Amy Pohler does. It's freaking hilarious! I think of it whenever I see a Viagra commercial!

The fundies don't get upset over these commercials because if the guy can get a big old boner, no matter how old he is, he can make a baybee!

Hmmm....

"Basically what ends up happening is stations, programmers and artists end up self-censoring because it's such a fucking bureaucratic hassle to deal with the FCC."

In short, Feh, to use the words of the almighty Eminem...

'The FCC won't let me be,
Or let me be me, so
Let me see...
They tried to shut me down on MTV,
But it feels so empty without me."