Old School Sesame Street Will Warp Your Child!!
 

And this, my friends, is why the upcoming generation of children will suck more than anything has ever sucked.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/ma...-medium-t.html

Get out of my head, I was just about to post this!!!

WTF is going on?
TOO Much dayum analysis!!

Well, I agree that the cartoons and shows of the 70s and 80s had some things in them that were inappropriate. Didn't notice them as children, but part of maturing is becoming more conscious.

I don't know how entertained many of today's kids would be from these older shows. Instead of parents ruling them out, just *gasp* stop letting TV babysit your kids and watch shows with them. Then you can talk to them about what they're seeing, appropriate or inappropriate.

They just go overboard. I certainly never thought that I could eat cookies all day because a blue puppet did.

I think part of the point of early Sesame Street was that a parent COULD watch it with their child and not hate it. Even if the 3 year old didn't understand who "Alistair Cookie" is, they could enjoy it on the level of a big funny blue monster and the parents would be entertained by the pop culture references and the puns.

But SS now....yeech, if I had a child and had to watch that Elmo ridden dreck, I'd throw up. Elmo is almost as loathsome as Scrappy Doo and that's saying a HELL of a lot.

Why not?

I remember when they finally let all the SS residents see Snufflelumpagus(sp?). The reasoning: Kids would think that adults wouldn't believe them since the SS adults didn't believe Big Bird.

SS was one big adult acid trip. Just like Scooby Doo and those other shows. :cool:

Electric Company was the best of all!

No, the best of all was Captain Kangaroo.

{sigh} Now my hip is cracking.

Is it inappropriate or has the culture changed?
I think its the latter. Remember all the hype about Bert and Ernie being gay?

Doh! Good one. I did love the Cap'n too.

I'll send you my extra coupons for Ben-Gay and orthopedic hose later...

Kukla Fran & Ollie.

MC, feel better now? :D

Much!!

Personally, I was a big fan of School House Rock! Conjunction Junction, what's your function?

Oh, and I'm just a Bill. ;)

LOL. Our Cub Scout den is working on the Citizenship achievement for Webelos, and I had the boys watch "I'm Just a Bill" and "The Preamble to the Constitution."

I think the boys spent as much time laughing at the parents as they did watching School House Rock. (And then there was the one kid who said "this is rock?")

BWahahaha!!!

I bought SchoolHouse Rock on DVD a few years ago.

Ahh, the memories.

They weren't gay and neither is Richard Simmons.

:(

Exactly.. :(

I still love Sesame Street...adults mess things up for no reason sometimes..

example: taking off saturday morning cartoons and replacing them with the drivel that's on now. :mad:

Well I bought the DVDs and I LOVE them.

A lot of the segments that Sesame Street ran were positively timeless. If I was still a teacher, I would definitely play the DVDs for my kids.


On a related note, I DID play a tape of Vegetable Soup for my first graders a few years ago. (If you don't recall, VS was an even more multicultural version of Sesame Street.)

Well, the ONLY part I thought wasn't so appropriate was when they defined what an OREO was! And I don't mean the cookie!

Yes, that was a very race-aware show.

I loved Kukla, Fran & Ollie. Those shows from other countries were the coolest.

I agree with this 100%. The parents that are screwing up childhood TV are the same ones that grew up watch SS and the likes. I'm still mad that Looney Tunes got taken off the air and put on Boomerang. Kids have no cartoons if they don't have cable.

Animate....just sort of a flipside...u ever seen any of the uncut Looney Toons stuff?

You would be surprised.

Altho I agree that a lot of that stuff is safer and saner than this garbage that is on now...Looney Toons really wasn't about the kids

Check some of the WWII toons if you ever find any.

Matter of fact:

Stereotypes
A handful of Looney Tunes shorts from the World War II era are no longer aired on American television nor are they available for sale by Warner Bros. because of the racial stereotypes of African-Americans, Jews (especially in the earlier cartoons, despite the fact that all four of the Warner Bros. were Jewish as well[2]), Japanese, Chinese people, and Germans (especially during WWII, as in "Tokio Jokio") included in some of the cartoons. Eleven cartoons that prominently featured stereotypical black characters (and a few passing jokes about Japanese people, as was the case with "Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs" and "Jungle Jitters") were withdrawn from distribution in 1968 and are known as the Censored Eleven. This has caused dismay among some animation enthusiasts, who feel that they should have access to these shorts. There has been some success in returning these cartoons to the public; in 1999 all Speedy Gonzales cartoons were made unavailable because of their alleged stereotyping of Mexicans, but because the level of stereotyping was minor compared to the World War II era cartoons as well as the protests of many Hispanics who said they were not offended and fondly remembered Speedy Gonzales cartoons from their youth, these shorts were made available for broadcast again in 2002.

In addition to these most notorious cartoons, many Warner cartoons contain fleeting or sometimes extended gags that reference then-common racial or ethnic stereotypes. The release of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3 includes a disclaimer at the beginning of each DVD in the volume given by Whoopi Goldberg which explains that the cartoons are products of their time and contain racial and ethnic stereotypes that these days would be considered offensive, but the cartoons are going to be presented on the DVD uncut and uncensored because editing them out and therefore denying that the stereotypes existed is almost as bad as condoning them.

A written disclaimer, similar to the words spoken by Goldberg in Volume 3, is shown at the beginning of each DVD in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4 set:

The cartoons you are about to see are products of their time. They may depict some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that were commonplace in American society. These depictions were wrong then and they are wrong today. While the following does not represent the Warner Bros. view of today's society, these cartoons are being presented as they were originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming that these prejudices never existed.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looney_Toons#Stereotypes

I watched Bugs Bunny every Saturday of my childhood when it was on CBS. Some of the cartoons were definitely cut to make them more kid-friendly. They NEVER showed any of the WWII cartoons or any of the ones with Black stereotypes. Tom & Jerry, on the other hand, I do remember a few of those - they had a "mammy" type housekeeper, who of course was seen only from the waist down (cat's-eye level).

I, for one, applaud your early descent into curmudgeonry - we'll sit around a $5 Pai Gow table, drink whiskey and water, and bitch about the rain and traffic . . . all by age 30(ish)!

Seriously though, Sesame Street sucks for kids, and kind of always has - Blue's Clues, as inane and tottering as it seems, is like 30x better for kids' learning and parents' eyes glazing over on Vicodin.

Also this is all the old generation's fault, not the kids' - the Baby Boomers and early Gen Xers can lick my balls, and the reaction to their excess will likely be hysterical (to me, anyway). The kids always win, whether it's opium, Woodstock, promiscuous sex, MySpace, or women's suffrage.

Those cartoons were sooooo racially charged. Nothing more than racist propaganda comparable to the days of penny novels that spewed hatred to the masses.

Some of the cartoon images that immediately come to my mind are:

The Africa baby with the bone sticking out of her hair.

The blackface depictions, particularly when "is you is or is you ain't my baby" was sung.

The faceless mammy in Tom and Jerry.

Not to mention Speedy Gonzalez. Was that looney toons or warner bros. Oh well.

These things were an overtly racist sign of their overtly racist times.

You should be so much more selective.

You hit it right on the head....I actually had a video tape of some of the WWII propoganda toons...sadly I lost in when I moved back in the 90s


And now I hear that for the last 2 years Disney has been wrapped up in a controversy about a DVD release of a little movie known as 'Song of the South"

Exactly @ DaemonSeid and Animate.

Cartoons were a reflection of society at the time. Yes, they are offensive now, but then, they weren't. (ex: the late night Black and White cartoons on CN that show some propaganda from WWII featuring a character called Snafu. DEFINITELY not for children, but a lot of those cartoons were shown to the GIs in training and the military often used Disney and WB to create training films. Very interesting if you can catch some of them)

And remember that these cartoons were often shown as previews to regular movies, which were seen by mostly adults.

And I miss Speedy Gonzales and his cousin Slow Poke Rodriguez. :(

Oh, gosh, YES @ Song of the South. Most of that stuff went RIGHT over my head (I was a sheltered military brat), but now I want to see it.

They were offensive back then, as well. They were meant to be offensive, brainwashing propaganda. They remind me of the Klan cartoons that never made mainstream but were widely viewed and aired on public access TV.

What are some images in today's children's shows that are offensive? And are they truly offensive or are we too conscious (or sensitive)?

When I really got my eyes opened to a lot of the stuff going on in toons (and don't forget everyone...a lot of these things were shown in movie theaters before TV) that is when i learned that just because it's animated, doesnt mean it's for kids...I know a South Park: The Movie fan in here that knows what I mean....hehe

A lot of the WB toons had a lot of adult content in it that flew right over our heads abd because we were lil kids at the time we never really grasped that Bugs was a crossdresser or that Porky made fun of people speech impediment and etc.

We just thought it was funny.

Ironically enough, back on the South Park Movie tip, it parodied that fact that people who don't pay attention to what their kids watch on TV will eventually grow up being bad people and that over protective parents sometimes made things even worse.

Now....did anyone here who saw this movie in the theaters see any other parents there with kids and noticed any kind of reaction when the movie got started?


if there was..did it mirror what was going on in the movie itself?

Again, animation altho it entertains, is still a part of social commentary for the times.

Just imagine 20 or 30 years from now when things like Family Guy and Boondocks will probably fly over the heads of another set of youngsters.....

My Mexican husband thinks Speedy Gonzalez is hilarious. Arriba, Arriba, Andele, Andele!!!

Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Greenjeans, Mr. Bunny, and Mr. Moose, oh those were the days!!! Oh, and remember the magic window??

DaffyKD

Yeah, I've read The Tipping Point and all the stuff about how kids learned so much more from Blue's than Sesame Street - at that age, probably true. But the point of the story isn't that they're saying these early episodes are adults only now because of the format. Sesame Street still has lots of fast action and jumping from thing to thing. It's because OMG OSCAR WAS KIND OF AN ASSHOLE. People forget, that show wasn't created for upper class suburban kids whose parents have a lot of time to spend with them and who would probably learn letters and numbers on their own. It was created for inner city kids in not great circumstances to help them not to be behind when they started school. How effective that was I don't know, but I doubt that any of those kids could have related to a show that was all sunshine and nothing else.

There have always been alternatives...yeah I watched SS & Daffy Duck acting like a maniac, but I also watched Mr. Rogers and Cover to Cover. One didn't dull enjoyment of the other. I think the problem now is that people go overboard...they hear Blue's Clues is great so every show tries to be like it...and with the tons of stations made just for kids and DVDs besides, that's a lot of time to fill up, with things that are usually substandard.

And you're coming to the party late...I've been a curmudgeon since around 27 when people tried to shove Kurt Cobain down my throat as the "voice of our generation."

That's fine for him to think that.

Wasn't this movie rated R??? If so, why on earth would parents be surprised that there was adult content in it - cartoon or not? That has nothing to do with cartoons, that has to do with idiot parenting.

I mean get real - I don't think anyone took their 8 year old to see Fritz the Cat or Heavy Metal just because it was a cartoon - if they did they're too stupid to breathe.

As to the war cartoons, that isn't any different than every other villain on prime time nowadays being Middle Eastern. Propaganda is propaganda, blatant or subtle. Like I said, none of those cartoons from WWII were EVER shown on Saturday morning TV.

I didn't see any parents there with kids. I figured many parents don't let their children see South Park on TV let alone in the theater.


Family Guy and Boondocks aren't written for kids. The creator and writers know that. If some kids watch and find it funny, fine, but that's not the target audience.

Best.Animated.Movie.EVERRRRRRRRR!!!!

That answers my previous question. Even before 9/11 we saw villains in more recent cartoons being darker and having foreign accents.

33girl...but see that is JUST what I am saying...when I went I saw at least 3 parents (no joke!) get up and take thier kids out and I too wondered if they knew what they were taking thier kids to see

That was the point of the movie also...parents NEED to really monitor what they let entertain thier kids, especially if a parent is not there to monitor them anyway.


And yes DSTCHAOS on your point about Family Guy...what I do find disturbing however is that now in my area it comes on around 6pm on local stations ( and yes I know someone will argue about it doesn't matter what time it comes on kids will watch and blah blah blah) and really, parents should be concerned that it's not prime time any more when syndication pretty much sets it's own times when it comes on.


Moving on another tangent...now they have to put ratings on video games....and from what I have seen (Grand Theft Auto not withstanding) they need to!


Bottom line, is that there are still a lot of people that believe that just because it's animated or a 'video game' that it's for the kids and that can't be so much further away from the truth.

Japanese anime has to be watered down for American audiences because of how graphic they are in nature and even still most are still extra violent when they air... I won't let my nephew watch Power Rangers nor Bleach or Blood because most of that I have seen the original uncut versions and I don't care if he is 6 and his mommy and daddy let him watch....he won't in my house!!

Most of the anime out there still has a lot of Adult situations and plots that kids under certain ages shouldn't be allowed to get exposed to.

...and let's not even get into hentai....

Gosh! I remember seeing a lot of those Warner cartoons when I was little. I never really noticed. I was just watching a cartoon at the time. I didn't understand a "Mammy" or the "slow" negro concepts (and my parents never made any attempt to stop me from seeing them) that I do now. I thought it was entertaining and goofy.
I guess I'd have to be able to watch them again to see if I still feel that way...Anyways, I'm trying to figure out what was so awful about SS. It's SS! It's FOR kids!

Folks are always trying to claim that back in the day was sooo great and sooo wholesome. I guess now they're seeing that they got played. Now don't that beat all...