Censorship for the Sake of the Children
After a complaint by just one viewer in Britain, Turner Broadcasting is now going through 1,500 Hanna-Barbera cartoons in order to remove scenes that glamorize smoking. That's all it takes! One huffy complaint and you too could have little pieces of history destroyed (paging Mel Gibson!). Apparently, when Fred Flintstone lights up his Marlboro Lights, tens of thousands of impressionable youth are prompted to dress like cavemen and grab some nicotine sticks — and that simply cannot stand. Along with the Flintstones, classic cartoons like Tom and Jerry and Scooby-Doo will be similarly edited for offensive, smokey content. So are they just going to eliminate Shaggy altogether?
