:: adgruntie :: Smokefree cartoons

+ Turner is editing smoking scenes out of Tom & Jerry cartoons because they feel it's not appropriate for younger viewers. Ok, but bashing someone over the head is a-ok? Sounds like a very tedious job.

Smoking scenes in vintage cartoon episodes of Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo are being reworked after a viewer complained they were not suitable for children.

Cartoon editors are painstakingly working through more than 1,500 episodes of the cartoons painting out images of characters smoking frame by frame.

Turner Broadcasting, which owns the rights to the cartoons, claims the move is a voluntary step.

But it comes after a viewer of the Boomerang Channel complained to media watchdog Ofcom, saying footage of Tom and Jerry smoking was not suitable for children.

In Texas Tom, Tom is shown trying to impress a girl by rolling and lighting a cigarette with one hand. Tennis Chumps shows Tom playing tennis and smoking a cigar.

Ofcom's report said that Turner has proposed to edit any scenes or references "where smoking appeared to be condoned, acceptable, glamorised or where it might encourage imitation".

But smoking scenes may not be edited from the screen in every instance.

"Turner believed... that editing out all references to smoking, where such references neither glamorised nor condoned, might adversely affect the value of the animation," Ofcom said.