What can we ban next?

I totally agree with Alan Stevens comments below. How pathetic can you get? Have we sunk to such depths that a TV company has to change it's output to ensure that "old" Tom & Jerry cartoons don't depict smoking. What's going to be banned next?

TV Presenters with green ties?

Drinking?

Corporate golf days in Surrey?


After a tough decision-making process, I have decided to award the MediaMug trophy this week to Ofcom. They have upheld a complaint from a viewer about Tom And Jerry cartoons on the TV Channel Boomerang. The complainant did not like the fact that Tom (the cat) was seen smoking. The regulator said : "We recognise that these are historic cartoons, mostly produced in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, at a time when smoking was more generally accepted. The smoking usually appears in a stylised manner and it is frequently not condoned, but the level for editorial justification required for the inclusion of smoking in such cartoons is necessarily high." So there you are. We all know smoking is bad for you, and that kids should be discouraged from taking it up. However, images of cartoom characters beating each other senseless with clubs and baseball bats and blowing each other up is acceptable, but smoking isn't. Hmm.


"This information originally appeared in "The MediaCoach", a free ezine produced by Alan Stevens, and available at http://www.mediacoach.co.uk"