Turner To Ax Smoking Scenes From Cartoons/Tom And Jerry And The Flintstones

[anoldguy]

As for non-cartoon shows, people should go back and listen
to a few Jack Benny shows. They'll find that Rochester was
smarter than his boss and frequently put him down. As for
Amos 'n' Andy, the Kingfish's schemes always backfire for the
same reason Ralph Kramden's do: there's always something he
didn't think through. That is NOT the same as being outsmarted
by a white person (in fact, you rarely saw a white person on
Amos 'n' Andy).

I remember reading an interview with someone involved with the Andy Griffth show a while back. They said at the time they wrestled with the idea of including a black person (Afro-American) into the cast. After all, it was set in North Carolina.
They finally decided against it because they felt, where could they put such a character and have him be funny? Replace Barney or Gomer? Then such a character would come off as foolish and then they would be acused of being racists.
As far as stereo-type villains in cartoons and elsewhere, What will be said about the media's treatment of Arabs 20 or 30 years from now?

 

[CrankyYankee]

O.K. Let's all relax with a smoke...Fred Flinstone is buying!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2N9HOK4o50

 

[bpatrick]

"That's not entirely fair to GSN. They are mostly hamstrung by government rules prohibiting all cigarette advertising on television. A lot of the Goodson-Todman library (for which GSN relies) taped in the 1950s are very prominent with their advertisements, including cigarettes."
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If that's the case...what wrong with pixelating the sponsors name out when it appears on screen?
(Leaving in old commercials for smokes would be wrong, yes indeed, but just the name in shot?!)
Let's not even begin a debate on the removal of tobacco advertising...I contend the advertising of a legal product should be allowed, it never influenced me.

For whatever reason, when PBS stations were showing the Groucho Marx "You Bet You Life" shows, the NBC letters on his desk mike were fuzzed out. Hey! That's history that's being fuzzed out!

PBS has no problem leaving in the big "GERITOL" name when it appears in the background on the Lawrence Welk show. (Oh, right, Geritol does not cause cancer...)

Also, if that's the case...tobacco companies quickly found a loophole by sponsoring sporting events like the Virginia Slims Classic and Winston Cup Racing. That should have been squashed right from the get-go.

I've Got A Secret was sponsored for part of its run by Winston cigarettes
(and a short-lived companion brand, Cavalier); To Tell The Truth was
sponsored for a time by Marlboro; Two For The Money was sponsored by
Old Gold, and there you had Herb Shriner giving cartons of the cigarettes
to every contestant! I don't know how GSN could cut that out, although
I agree, they could blur out the cigarette names on the front of the
panel's table, or whatever.

It wasn't just on PBS that Groucho's mike had the NBC letters blurred out;
it was done that way when You Bet Your Life was put into syndication
(they also blew up some of the pictures so as not to show the sponsor
logo, even though for most of the show's run it was DeSoto cars and not
a cigarette company).

Winston got out of racing in part because of the bad publicity about
cigarettes, and Camel had its share of controversy because its "Joe
Camel" character appealed to children.

As for Lawrence Welk, PBS also doesn't mind showing the Dodge logo
on black-and-white episodes from the '50s. They even show some
of the singers doing a special version of "Good Night Ladies" at the
end of the show, with Larry Hooper saying, "Dodge had a good time too."

 

[jal41]

Re: Turner To Ax Smoking Scenes From Cartoons in the UK ONLY!

Turner Channel has decided to ax all smoking scenes from all their cartoons from Tom And Jerry to The Flintstones among others.

Here's the link:

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14452732

I guess what's going to happen next is that they will drop every show that depicts smoking on old sitcoms especially I Love Lucy,among others.

Comments?

This action only affects the Cartoon Network and Boomerang in the United Kingdom only!

If you all read the dateline, it was London, not Atlanta where the US (and global operations) are based. Tom and Jerry and Fred and Barney will still be puffing away on Cartoon Network and Boomerang in the United States.

 

[bpatrick]

I did see the London dateline, but figured that
the ban on cartoon smoking would be in effect
in the U.S. as well.

At any rate, one person complained (a Nebraska
lawyer, I believe) about cigarette logos on '50s-era
GSN shows; one person complained about a cigarette
in a Tom and Jerry cartoon; and it's probably inevitable
that someone, someday, will complain about Lucy Ricardo's
smoking (of course, then, they'll also have to drop about
90% of Turner Classic Movies because it seems like everybody
smoked in the 1930s and '40s pictures).

I still think all this political correctness is tampering with
history. As a history teacher, I think my students need
to know that once upon a time--whether we like it or not--
smoking, racial remarks, etc., were perfectly acceptable.

 

[gr8oldies]

As I recall, Winston (RJR) had to give up the NASCAR "cup" sponsorship as part of its settlementg with the Justice Department. They could have used one of their non-cigarrette brands, I suppose (The Nabisco cup)?

 

[bk77]

At any rate, one person complained (a Nebraska
lawyer, I believe) about cigarette logos on '50s-era
GSN shows; one person complained about a cigarette
in a Tom and Jerry cartoon; and it's probably inevitable
that someone, someday, will complain about Lucy Ricardo's
smoking (of course, then, they'll also have to drop about
90% of Turner Classic Movies because it seems like everybody
smoked in the 1930s and '40s pictures).

Someone already DID complain about all the smoking done on I Love Lucy....Lucie Arnaz !! She was in my hometown a few years back and told one of our local papers how much she wished she could "erase" all those cigarette scenes.

Today neither Lucie or her brother Desi Jr. have much of a say to do anything about it but as I pointed out earlier, it shouldn't come as a surprise if one day if she would indeed own the rights to all of the I Love Lucy shows. With all the money she makes off the images of Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance and so forth, heck she could very well afford to buy the rights right now.

I would be curious to know how could she really "erase" all of those cigarette scenes.

Yeah, smoking was considered very acceptable back then. My uncle once told me that to refuse a cigarette when one offers it to you back in the good ole days was considered very rude. Even I can remember watching people smoke while picking grapes at the local supermarket and I think even many department store chains back then such as Macys even offered ash trays for customers who wished to smoke and shop.

and nevermide the fact that the military back then gave away free packs of Camels to soilders.

Times have changed.

 

[bpatrick]

You did indeed mention that Lucie Arnaz would like
to get a-hold of I Love Lucy and delete the scenes
of her mom smoking (electronically blurred out, so
as not to mess up the plot, maybe?). What's
interesting is that two obscure people manage to
get game shows with cigarette logos (possibly a
violation of the FCC's ban on cigarette ads, but nothing
said about Garry Moore's constant smoking on I've
Got A Secret) pulled from GSN, and cartoons with
smoking scenes banned from Boomerang (at least
in the UK, but what makes you think it won't happen
in the U.S.?). Yet Lucie and Desi Jr., who are hardly
obscure, are going to have to go even more public
or buy the rights to their parents' show, to accomplish
what they want.

And then, as I asked earlier, what happens to comedians
like George Burns and Groucho Marx, whose cigars were
their trademarks? Groucho's show couldn't be chopped
up anymore than it already is (at least his shows are
on DVD, where we can see what they originally
looked like).

It's also true that World War II-era radio game shows
gave cartons of cigarettes to contestants, who were
mostly servicepeople; on Bob Hawk's wartime CBS game,
"Thanks To The Yanks," ALL the prizes were cartons of
Camels. (My dad says that most all the major brands were
earmarked for the troops, and civilians were left with inferior,
long-gone brands like Wings and Spuds...unless you knew
about black-market access to Camels, Luckies, etc.)

I don't know what motivates a person to start smoking.
I do know that I question the willpower of someone who
starts because they saw it on a 50-year-old television
rerun, especially given what we've learned about the link
between smoking and cancer since then. But that's just
my opinion.

 

[azumanga]

Someone already DID complain about all the smoking done on I Love Lucy....Lucie Arnaz !! She was in my hometown a few years back and told one of our local papers how much she wished she could "erase" all those cigarette scenes.

Of course, some of the funniest scenes on "I Love Lucy" involve cigarettes. One involves Lucy wearing a false nose -- when she tried to light up her cigarette, she lit her nose instead.