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Realism Is Ruining The Violence In Our Cartoons

ON YOUR TV SCREEN-- What has happened to the animated "make-believe" violence on television? When we were young, the cartoons we watched were loaded with exaggerated animated graphic violence! But in the innocent Looney Tunes era of our youth, we were able to distinguish reality from cartoon reality. We knew that Daffy Duck's buckshot-blasted bill would be restored when the next scene started, and we took for granted that the coyote's mangy fur would be singe-free seconds after being blown up with 250 tons of Acme-brand TNT. But with today's super-real animation, we're not sure that the children know how to distinguish between the two.

In the old cartoons, this 1 tonne weight would cause quite the bruise. But in the new generation of ultra-real cartoons, this weight would kill.

The problem with today's cartoons could be that they're just too real. The cartoon humans look human, and the cartoon animals look like animals, and lack the anthropomorphic abilities of their cel-drawn forefathers.

In the "old days," a cartoon character could run for a good ten to fifteen steps off of a cliff before gravity took over, usually a second or two after he realized he was suspended in mid-air. But in today's near-real animations, lifelike characters plummet the moment they step off that ledge, screaming in horror as they fall to their cartoon deaths. What impression is this giving to children about the reality-avoiding qualities of fantasy and escapism?

These near-real cartoons and their five-fingered archetypes seem to be made for people who want to see something more than traditional comic antics. The plots last for the entire half-hour, and sometimes beyond into a whole series. No, they don't always make sense, but there is a thread of narrative that extends beyond the Coyote and Roadrunner's 15-second violence-filled operettes. What are we teaching our children when an animated H-Bomb explodes over an Eastern European city and the consequences can be felt through an entire animated series? Huckleberry Hound never had to deal with armageddon.

Where are the tiny umbrellas that would stop giant falling boulders? They never worked, but we laughed at the desperate hope the cartoon character had that a flimsy parasol could prevent certain pulverization. It didn't matter in any case because he would always be back to normal by the beginning of the next scene. But in these reality cartoons, when there is an accident, the character goes through the entire cartoon with a broken arm, a scorched scalp, or tattered clothes. Is this what we want our kids to watch?

And what of the characters themselves? Gone are the one-dimensional smart-aleck rabbits, the stuttering pigs, and the other goofy animals with identifiable speech impediments. You no longer see the overly obsessive handlebar-moustached pirates, the bald sociopathic hunters, and the other ridiculous ethnic stereotypes. They've been replaced with military teams, special forces operatives, and law enforcement officers--realistic characters that work hard for some purpose or goal, relying on team members and learning valuable moral lessons as they go. How dreary! Where's the escapism in that? It just doesn't seem healthy.

There's something terribly wrong when a character doesn't bounce off the ground or create a cookie-cutter outline of his body in the pavement. There's something awful when he doesn't wobble and vibrate like a tuning fork when a door is slammed in his face, and something's definitely amiss when he doesn't light up like an x-ray when he gets electrocuted. Children need to get away from their real angst-filled lives and escape into worlds where the real physics don't apply, instead of mourning over the reality cartoon character who accidentally touched a live telephone wire.

It used to be that when a giant anvil, a bowling ball, a safe, or 2000 lb weight fell from the sky, you knew the character was going to get thumped. You'd see a giant lump growing six inches up out of the top of their head. Now that's a "consequence of your actions!"

But now, when you're watching these next-generation style cartoons, that weight is going to cause serious irreversible damage to the character! You're not going to see him walking off the screen like a pre-squeezed accordion, or blowing on this thumb to restore his steamroller-flat form to normal. He'll probably be dead, and we're all the poorer for it.

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