Tobacco Facts.

Starting from the post-war 50’s several generations have grown up watching cartoons about the amusing adventures of Tom and Jerry. Tom, the Cat and his old time friend-foe Jerry, the Mouse have become the legendary cartoon, incredibly popular and loved by thousand of millions of kids and their parents in every corner of our world. Yet, the historical cartoon would be subjected to censorship, since several health-freaks discovered “inadmissible” scenes that promote smoking, and push for prohibiting them.

National Organization for Smoking Eradication (NOTE) members have sent a letter of complaint to the UK Office of Communications (often abbreviated as Ofcom) claiming two episodes of world-famous cartoon “Tom and Jerry” included smoking scenes what has been utterly inadmissible for the program for minors; therefore, the scenes should be censored.

The spokesman for the NOTE said that they have decided to demand banning those scenes after having received an anonymous complaint, which author stated that his children have being lured to cigarettes due to seeing their favorite characters puffing.

The spokesman as well mentioned that the Organization was particularly worried with the Tom and Jerry cartoon’s two episodes called “Texas Tom” and “Tennis Chumps”, broadcasted some time ago by Playroom – a TV channel dedicated to children. In the “Tennis Chumps” that was made in 1949, Tom plays lawn-tennis against his on-and-off opponent Butch, who was hanging his racquet in one hand and a cigar in another. In black-and-white “Texas Tom” shot in 1950, Tom wants to fetch a glamorous female cat by lighting up a cigar. According to the NOTE, the latter scenes affected children’ attitude to the hazards of cigarettes, by showing that smoking was fashionable; thus, those scenes should be subjected to censorship.

The UK Office of Communications has warned Playground executives to avoid broadcasting programs that contain scenes contributing to indirect advertising of smoking.

Richard Hamilton, the Ofcom senior manager, said that Playground as well as other channels intended for underage audience should demonstrate a high rate of editorial censure cutting unacceptable scenes like the ones that contained smoking from the programs they broadcast. Otherwise, the UK Office of Communications would recall their license for broadcasting.

Playground management did not hesitate to respond on the warning. Upon few days after getting the notification from regulatory body, Williams Broadcasting, the owner of Playground channel, said their editors started cutting out the scenes containing smoking from all the available movies and cartoons. Among the cartoons subjected to censorship are the legendary cartoons like Tom and Jerry, Mickey Mouse, The Jetsones and other.

Williams Broadcasting executive said that the company acknowledged its responsibility for showing unacceptable scenes of smoking to minors, but had no intention of advertise smoking in such way or allure children to trying cigarettes. He added that their editors would review all the material demonstrated to children in order to avoid showing inadmissible scenes in the future.

The FOREST, an organization that defends smokers’ rights named the issue with cartoon censorship as ridiculous stating that it would create a rather risky precedent for similar situations in the future. One of organization’s members stated he thought that Tom and Jerry cartoon contained many unacceptable scenes containing violence; however nobody wanted to cut them since they have been an essential part of the cartoon.

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