Ah, gotta love the senseless demonization of cartoons and evil "non-political correctness." Most of us grew up without helmets on bicycles and with lots of violent, even slightly racist cartoon (Bugs Bunny Nips The Nips anyone?) -- yet we're much better off than the soft generation we're raising today.

Natural selection should be allowed to work as intended: kids who are dumb enough shouldn't breed, yet for some reason, society wants the less-than-capable to bring down the rest of the gene pool.

They are, after all, only cartoons ... the local news is much more gory and vile.

I just wanted to add that as adults, we view 'cartoons' with a lost innocence.
Depending on a child's age, 3 little kittens emerging from a wet sack COULD appear as 'accidental' (as opposed to a cruel or "needed act").
Pain = Humour, or at least that is what the industry has taught children.

- Bugs Vs Elmer Fudd ("Kill the Wabbit")
- Wyle E. Coyote Vs RoadRunner ("Road Runner, that Coyote's after you! Road Runner, if he catches you, you're through!")
- Tom Vs Jerry
- The Smurfs Vs Gargamel/Azrael

Even Garfield and Charlie Brown have their share of 'violence'. And don't even think about watching a Disney movie if you are looking for 'child entertainment' without some underlying act of brutality.

Your perception has been altered.. welcome to adulthood.

You're talking to a kid who was raised on a farm, Ricky. :)

Trust me, I know all about that kind of stuff.

Violence has been a big part of cartoons for years. Seriously? What has changed? Anvils were dropped on peoples heads and we laughed madly cus it was funny. Pianos too. Hunting season comes around and duck bills are shot off and spun around heads. Cats get blown up and die, floating to heaven. The mouse in the end laughs a lot.

Older cartoons were worse in violence... because believe it or not, they weren't made FOR KIDS. They were made for added entertainment at the nightly theaters where news reels, ads, cartoons, war propaganda, and other things were played. A lot of the cartoons that we watched as kids were all made for adults to watch. To make them laugh at the idiocy of the wars. To prove points. Political mostly. It's a sign of the times now. you see a old Bugs bunny cartoon with him mocking the war and back then it was funny, but now it's like "WOW that was morbid!" that style stayed with it for other cartoons and has now been a formula for ALL cartoons. Morbid Violence and ugly jokes.

We still laugh at it.

Cow and Chicken....... their parents are just lower legs! No arms or anything. They eat pork butts. Sheep in the Big City is about a speechless sheep running around being shot at by the military (I don't even know why...). American Cartoons are the strangest things ever, I swear. People say Japanese Animation is violent as heck! But in reality, its made for adults as well, and its violence (though not in all cases) is plot driven, not meant for laughs, where American cartoons will blow your head off and leave a blood splatter in green for some alien being killed that says "we come in pieces!" as it dies.


Cartoons will always be morbid and violent. Sure, I look at them now and laugh at the jokes I didn't get before because they were far too adult. I look at them now and wonder how come I didn't get something before. I don't know... they're all just... morbid in their own little way. But really... it will never change. And... in the end who have they really hurt?

The animated movie All Dogs Go to Heaven. It probably wouldn't be G-rated today.

Back when this cartoon was made, drowning kittens was commonplace on farms. They had to kill them, and although not "acceptable" by today's standards, it was necessary, otherwise the cats would have overrun the barns and caused problems: disease from urine and feces, etc.

It's no more funnier than today's Simpsons making fun of religions or races.

You'll get over it.

I never considered that bit about drowning kittens as a joke. It was more a commentary. St. Peter the Cat (I assume) respnds ruefully about the cruelty that people do to animals.

What has bugged me in recent years is why there are so many orphans in cartoons. Huey, Dewey, and Louie or orphan. So is Sweet Pea. Sylvester th cat has a son but no wife. I have to wonder why that didn't bug me so much as a kid. The Honeymouers wre a direct pardoy of the Honeymooners complete with hints of "to the moon, Alice!" domestic violence.

I think the first cartoon in which Bugs Bunny meets the Vulture has a scene in which Bugs gets buried up to his neck in sand but is laying under a skeletal carcass that he believes his his exposed bones. that creeped me out big time.

Oh, and the "Spirit of '43" has Donald Duck having a nightmare that he is in Nazi Germany and saluting Hitler. It used to be on YouTube and is a strange thing to watch.

There was one Tom & Jerry episode that was set in France and Tom got the guillotine at the end. Jerry just whistled and skipped off.

I laughed for about ten minutes out of sheer shock. Definitely didn't remember anything that morbid from my childhood viewings.

As you describe it, it sounds like a sensible criticism of the cruelty of people who would drown kittens, and not a joke in any sense.