I dunno how many of you listen to NPR radio but they had an interesting topic recently.

I only caught the last bit but apparently a group of selectively dumb people have decided that the old Tom and Jerry cartoons are teaching our young that its alright to smoke cigarettes.

According to these people, a few of these cartoons illustrate smoking and they feel that it is improper.

The owners, or current owners of the cartoons are supposed to edit all the cartoons with smoking in them to appease these selective types.

Apparently however, its still OK to shoot someone with a gun and/or club them over the head with boards and rocks, just as long as they are not smoking. :rolleyes:

Has anyone else heard about this? Whats your take?

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Well I can't listen to that radio station for obvious reasons, but here's my take on this sillyness anyway. :razz:

I wonder what these people would say from the old Disney cartoons where
Mikey Mouse and the gang use a maxim machinegun to drive some tribal
people away. I don't recall correctly, but I think some of them died in
the cartoon. :smile: There was some documentary about the history of Disney
where they showed that.

That's the sillyness with minorty groups some specific things are bad while
other things that actually are bad and not funny slip past unnoticed.
These people rise havoc over nothing and it's not a good thing...

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''Everyone wades in s**t until they're competent enough to walk on it. Jesus style.''
Dystopia - Empires

Tom and Jerry is a great cartoon. Far better than any children's cartoon I've seen that was made in my lifetime. The children's cartoons of the 21st century are crap. From my point of view they only teach kids to be petty and materialistic, and to scream and cry whenever they don't get their way.

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o

I never understood that kind of logic either. Tom & Jerry is basically about a mouse killing a cat in all kinds of funny ways. And then people complain about one of them smoking a cigarette.

It reminds me of the beginning of the movie "Mrs Doubtfire". I must have been 8 or 9 when it came out but even then I found it stupid when they showed that overly fake pro-smoking cartoon that clearly was a Tom and Jerry parody. And that although I never started smoking myself. I mean I smoked like 10 cigarettes in my life but that's it. And I saw tons of smoking cartoon characters and Bruce Willis movies.

When do people realise that it's the world that inspires TV and not TV that inspires the world.

I so totally agree with Baron..

cigarettes may be bad.. but i doubt many kids will smoke because tom did... they have NO ACESS TO CIGARETTES?!

But materialism and whining are things that a kid has immeadiate acess to and will use when they get the chance.

Personally i watched pooh bear , which is the most moralistic of all the cartoons i've seen.

the really old ones , not these new ones where tigger is the main theme..... and all they do is bounce......... yeah

What i was more interested in was the books , and was my first interest in reading.

Poohbear ftw imho :razz:

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.else /me ~kill you
www.arclan.net

I dunno man... too much of 'poo'bear and you might end up with all kinds of strange fetishes and perversions. I think the government should step in and filter all of our entertainment, to be sure that we are only corrupted by the 'correct' media sources, you know, like MTV and Mcdonalds.

This whole thing starts to get very close to George Orwells 1984, where they constantly changed history to suit the moment. There are better things to worry about than stupid s**t like this.

Finger said:
This whole thing starts to get very close to George Orwells 1984, where they constantly changed history to suit the moment. There are better things to worry about than stupid s**t like this.

I agree. Honestly, who does s**t like this and feels fulfilled at the end of the day?

they have NO ACESS TO CIGARETTES?!

It's remarkably easy for an underage person to buy cigarettes.

And yeah... who gives a f**k? Smoking has been a tradition since the dawn of man, so... f**k it. I don't care.

Addicted to Morphine said:
I agree. Honestly, who does s**t like this and feels fulfilled at the end of the day?

There are people who think its their life's mission to do exactly that Morph. I have met them and TBH, there are no words to describe them in person.

I have an aunt who pre-watched everything her daughter ever saw on TV. She was so bad about it that even when the child was 13, she almost wouldn't allow her to watch Bambi because there was a scene where birth was being illustrated. This is an extreme example of these types, but still accurate enough. This child of hers, at least the last time I saw her, is now very introverted. IMO, this is a type of abuse.

French Toast said:
It's remarkably easy for an underage person to buy cigarettes.

And yeah... who gives a f**k? Smoking has been a tradition since the dawn of man, so... f**k it. I don't care.

As an ex-smoker I can honestly say that someone should give a f**k. Cigarettes are literally the hardest thing I ever gave up. (10-10-96)

I had many reasons to quit, all of them not enough reason until I visited the emphysema ward at the hospital. If that isn't an eye opener, nothing will be. I decided at that point that I wouldn't end up in such a state.

To be truthful, that prolly isn't enough reason for everyone. The future is so far off that to visit a bunch of old people who cannot breathe most likely won't effect the average Joe.

People like me however, who think that the world is a much better place with us in it are just vain enough to allow the impact of that experience to dictate terms. Besides, theres the added incentive that the world no longer tolerates a smoker. Few if any public establishments allow it now. This is also a vain thing because I will not be told by a perfect stranger that I cannot smoke where I wish. To avoid a confrontation, quitting was the perfect solution.

Lastly, vanity rescued me once more. That little tobacco filled piece of paper was running things. It told me when and where I was to smoke it. I refused to continue to be told what to do by an inanimate object!

Smoking=bad... No matter how old you are.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

It's been a tradition, but then people realized how bad it was for your lungs. My grandfather was a lifelong smoker, and when the news broke the smoking was bad for you, he quit. But of course it was too late. Emphysema took him, and because of that there's no chance I'll ever smoke cigarettes.

But back on topic, Tom and Jerry will in no way make me want to smoke. It's peer pressure, not old-cartoon pressure.

This is one of my pet peeves. When people try to change everything in the world to suit them. How selfish. And what's worse is.... the attitude is growing. In my opinion, this attitude is caused by the media mostly.

I'm starting to worry that in my lifetime, a day will come that noone cares about anyone else anymore. There will be no love, only greed and lust. Then again... I choose to not give up hope that this can be turned around.

But I do know this. People caring and helping one another, despite how corny it may sound, is the cornerstone of civilization. Without it, civilizations will fall. Perhapes it is time for America to fall, epescially if it keeps degrading like this.

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Dark_Kilauea
DVS Administration
http://www.dvstudio-production.com/

Dark_Kilauea said:
But I do know this. People caring and helping one another, despite how corny it may sound, is the cornerstone of civilization. Without it, civilizations will fall.

Herein lies the problem. One mans caring, is another mans intrusion.

The defining moment is where each of us defines caring.

We all know smoking is unhealthy.. We also all know that individualism, even self destructive individualism is also one of our cornerstone beliefs. We each have the right to kill ourselves with cigarettes... Caring, can be self destructive too I guess.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

If someone complains about Tom & Jerry supposedly promoting smoking that's the kind of "caring" that makes it sound corny in general.

For example, smoking is allowed pretty much everywhere here in Austria.

People see it as their "right" to blow the fume in other people's faces. Now that slowely measures are taken to add smoke free areas to restaurants and disallow it in public buildings they use the same arguments to "defend" their right as we have to use to defend our rights to watch harmless T&J cartoons. But people don't distinguish. Banning Tom and Jerry is as much patronizing as banning toxic smoke from public places. The superior number of ridiculous complaints makes it hard to advocate the ones that are based on years of scientific research and reasonable thinking.

This has been tried already on the warner brothers cartoons, except with regaurds to guns and viloence. I remember watching them one sunday on a channel i can't remember at the moment. They had literally removed all the gunshot and head whacking scenes and it was ridiculous.

It went something like:

Duck season!

Wabbit season!

Duck season!

Wabbit season!

(massive edit, jump to)

Daffy duck with head all smoked up and burning.

Not only was it ridiculous, but it made the cartoons unwatchable.

This kind of thinking is the same kind that proposes video game violence as the source for real world violence. Holier than though know it all's pre-determining what they think is best for you. One man said, anybody now adays with photoshop and a printer can become a concerned group with a fancy letterhead, and it's time people stopped cowtowing to them and try to deal with the real problems most people face at home, and stop trying to place the blame elsewhere.

Its like people cannot figure out that "Good" isn't really that universal.

What saddens me most is, they really do not have any facts to back up their theories. They just cut off the head to cure the cold.

I'd like to repay people like this in kind, if only I could find something they think benign yet it would bother the hell out of them when I decide that they cannot have it anymore. :rolleyes:

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Coffee. Imagine how pissed off they would be without their coffee. Possibly so much that no one would want to be around them for any duration of time.

Of course, since most of us probably like coffee, this would be a problem for us, too. Still, it's something to think about, banning an "accepted" drug, or rather, its delivery system.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

LIST OF PEOPLE I HATE:

Eric Blumrich
Charla Trotman
Timothy Rea
Rick Castro
Pastor Jim Nichollis
Sonia Moghe
Professor Arnold Leunes
Reverend Ash Cairo
People who exhibit extreme stupidity and get away with it.
Bill Gates
Steve Ballmer
People who send me illegal software then complain when I call the SPII.

According to my list, I hate these people even more than I hate Bill Gates.

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Better to be in denial than to be human.

Bill Gates understands binary: his company is number one, and his customers are all zeros.

Foxpup said:
LIST OF PEOPLE I HATE:

Breathe bud... Just breathe.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

i wonder if these experts would back me in a lawsuit against fred quimby for turning me into a smoker.

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i eat paint

French Toast said:
And yeah... who gives a f**k? Smoking has been a tradition since the dawn of man, so... f**k it. I don't care.

Smoking tobacco has only been around since Europeans contacted the New World. Since I'm sure you don't mean Hookahs and Opium smoking in middle- and eastern asia. I mean, that it is totally different.

If being a tradition for a long time makes it something to not care about, then prostitution, genocide, unjustified witch-burnings and other things should be okay. Even older than smoking, that.

I agree with Orph: Smoking = Bad. Bad for the smoker, bad for those who live with his unfiltered smoke, bad for those they might influence to do the same. The only thing smoking helps is your internal "I'm Cool" meter. But it wouldn't even help that if others didn't do it.

About the cartoons:

I think they should be crusading to ban the cartoons that kids are watching NOW... Have any of you seen any of the stuff for kids on Cartoon Network? There is no point! They just flit from one subject to another and the animation is crappy. At least old cartoons required kids to remember themes and characters from one day to another. now the cartoon shows are like the day in the life of a severe case of ADHD.

Cartoons with a PLOT, and slapstick humor, FTW

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

I'd rather die of lung cancer than be forced to sit through 24 hours of Tom and Jerry. God I hated that mouse. Just once I wanted to see the cat rip his head off.

I think that was the point of the cartoon.

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Dark_Kilauea
DVS Administration
http://www.dvstudio-production.com/

Nickelplate said:
Smoking tobacco has only been around since Europeans contacted the New World. Since I'm sure you don't mean Hookahs and Opium smoking in middle- and eastern asia. I mean, that it is totally different.

so smoking didn't exist until the europeans found out about it. i wonder who wasn't doing it, that they found out about it from.

uh, it was the british east india company that flooded china with opium, in order to recoup some of the silver that had been used as the only acceptable paymant for tea from the mandarins. it's not like opium smoking was a widespread diversion for the chinese people, at least not until the great british empire decided to make it that way.

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i eat paint

I'm sure the native americans smoked long before the europeins found the americas.

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Dark_Kilauea
DVS Administration
http://www.dvstudio-production.com/

I think they should be crusading to ban the cartoons that kids are watching NOW... Have any of you seen any of the stuff for kids on Cartoon Network? There is no point! They just flit from one subject to another and the animation is crappy. At least old cartoons required kids to remember themes and characters from one day to another. now the cartoon shows are like the day in the life of a severe case of ADHD.

QFT

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o

i agree with the baron
for the most part it seems like the only good places you can find good cartoons aree in comic books and boomerang

Nickelplate said:
Smoking tobacco has only been around since Europeans contacted the
New World. Since I'm sure you don't mean Hookahs and Opium smoking in
middle- and eastern asia. I mean, that it is totally different.

so smoking didn't exist until the europeans found out about it. i wonder who wasn't doing it, that they found out about it from.

uh, it was the british east india company that flooded china with
opium, in order to recoup some of the silver that had been used as the
only acceptable paymant for tea from the mandarins. it's not like opium
smoking was a widespread diversion for the chinese people, at least not
until the great british empire decided to make it that way.

^^ This man speaks the truth. Nickel, no disrespect but history extends beyond 200-odd years :wink:

Even the native americans who were smoking long before Europeans, were not smoking it since the dawn of time or whatever.

And the point still stands that not EVERYTHING that is old is good, (smoking) and not everything that is new is good (crap-cartoons.)

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

So going along those same lines that we should break old traditions due to what we now know about how the world works, because due to this new information those ideas seem stupid.

*cough*Religion*cough*

no you're putting words in his mouth, he never said that because it's old/tradition it's nesicarily bad, and as far as i'm concerned you should do things because you believe in them i.e. religion, i believe in God because i do not because my parents do ok, but i don't want this to turn into an argument on God's existance that was just an example

maybe you like new cartoons, that's your decision, i don't agree with you but that doesn't mean your wrong to me unless you like them because others do

oh and there are a couple good new ones like aquateen and sealab

Nickelplate said:
And the point still stands that not EVERYTHING that is old is good, (smoking) and not everything that is new is good (crap-cartoons.)

Is what i said. I thought you could read.

Fatstrings, I'm glad you've said what you said. But frenchy was actually sticking up for smoking, because he wants to do it and he wants to beleive that he is not a goofball every time he does it to look cool.

He thought that by putting smoking and religion in the same group, that I'd be forced to do away with religion, or admit that smoking is okay in order to save face about my religion being "stupid, in light of new information."

Fact is, smoking and religion are not in the same group, unless you want to say "They are both things."

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

Fatstrings, I'm glad you've said what you said. But frenchy was actually sticking up for smoking, because he wants to do it and he wants to beleive that he is not a goofball every time he does it to look cool.

You're running out of s**tty personal digs I see.

oh, come on... You try to ridicule me and my opinions all the time... It's all in fun, yeah? :smile: (also, I'm trying not to curse anymore, so goofball will fit for now)

And you know you were trying to be sneaky and do just what I said you were trying to do, too.

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

hey i smoked cigarettes but then i realized that i didn't want to do this to my body
marijuana i have no problems against, marijuana doesn't ruin peoples lives, those people ruin their lives and decide to spend it with weed instead of being worthwhile
i don't have a problem with drinking
i have a problem with people telling others to change aspects of their lives, such as drinking, smoking, religion, etc...

marijuana i have no problems against, marijuana doesn't ruin peoples lives, those people ruin their lives and decide to spend it with weed instead of being worthwhile

Because your posts are completely void of grammar, punctuation and spelling, I may have interpreted this wrong...

Is that not a complete contradiction?

sorry about the grammar it's a laziness
i am referring to the belief that weed ruins people's lives
it doesn't
those people that seem to have been "victims" of weed would usually be where they are without it, so i feel that the belief that weed ruins peoples lives is just plain stupid

Ah, then I support you.

on what the laziness, the weed, or both

The weed.

Gwil said:
history extends beyond 200-odd years :wink:

A few historical oddities.

Smoking tobacco is definitely far more reaching than 200 odd years but... it is only in the last 200 or so that it became an issue. For one thing, less people could afford it. For another, it didn't become as unhealthy until the advent of modern pesticides. Lastly, people died from a whole plethora of things long before lung cancer would have done them in.

There are reported cases of life long smokers with no adverse signs of doing so. These people smoke mainly tobacco not coated with insecticides and other poisons.

Finely, I am not positive, but nearly so. The native Americans didn't smoke what we know as tobacco. I am almost sure that the Chinese discovered it.. along with a s**tload of other inhalants.

In the end, I can safely say that tobacco has been around a few thousand years, not hundreds.

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The best things in life, aren't things.