Turner to ax smoking scenes from cartoons

[Dukkha]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14452732/from/RS.4/

LONDON - Turner Broadcasting is scouring more than 1,500 classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons, including old favorites Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo, to edit out scenes that glamorize smoking.

The review was triggered by a complaint to British media regulator Ofcom by one viewer who took offence to two episodes of Tom and Jerry shown on the Boomerang channel, part of Turner Broadcasting which itself belongs to Time Warner Inc.

“We are going through the entire catalogue,” Yinka Akindele, spokeswoman for Turner in Europe, said on Monday.

“This is a voluntary step we’ve taken in light of the changing times,” she said, adding the painstaking review had been prompted by the Ofcom complaint.

The regulator’s latest news bulletin stated that a viewer, who was not identified, had complained about two smoking scenes on Tom and Jerry, saying they “were not appropriate in a cartoon aimed at children.”

so they will censor decades old cartoons over the complaint of someone who can't turn off a TV. Brilliant.

[CrushTheDLC]

1. Scooby Doo glamorized smoking?

Maybe Shaggy was sparking up a bowl in the back of the van, but I don't remember any cigarettes.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Eh.

A bunch of people got their panties in a bunch a couple of years ago when they wouldn't air the racist Bugs Bunny episodes during a Bugs Bunny marathon.

Maybe they'll make a commemorative Tom and Jerry Smoking Cigarettes Collector's DVD and then everybody will be happy.