As mentioned in the NY Times on November 18th 2007, the early years of Sesame Street have been released on DVD with the warning that they are intended for a grown up audience only and may not be suitable for modern pre-schoolers!
I had to admit, I did a double take on this, then it hit me. The world of political correctness. The characters on the original show, much like many other shows I watched as a child, are not the ‘correct’ characters we see on today’s shows. It’s not just Sesame Street that’s changed over the years, but everything from Bugs Bunny to children’s books. What we grew up with is now often deemed harmful, insulting, racist, and unsuitable for the innocent minds of today’s children.
Oscar is a prime example. Man, that trash can monster was a real grouch. He never smiled, he was depressive to the point of needing help, but now he actually smiles on occasions and reads stories to his little worm pal. After all you can’t have a depressed, grumpy character, children would never see that in real life and be able to identify with that – would they?
Another example from my childhood was a British T.V. show called The Magic Roundabout, people in the USA might be more aware of it as a movie called Dougal, which was nothing like the original show at all, and the only thing that remained the same were the names of the characters. Much of the humor in the original show was aimed at adults, and it was on just before the early evening news. More adults put on their T.V. sets to ‘warm up’ just so they could watch the show. And yes, not so many years ago you did have to put the set on to warm up before you were able to watch it.
So, after reading the article about Sesame Street, which is provided in the link, I got to wondering. How many other shows did I grow up with that would not be suitable for the children of this era?
The old time Bugs Bunny, Road Runner and Tasmanian Devil cartoons. Way too much violence there. Take a look at some of the older ones, you can often stumble across them in the $5 bins in Wal-Mart, then compare them with modern ones. There’s almost no violence! Didn’t we just love seeing the Road Runner squished time and again? It didn’t hurt us, we were children, not idiots, we knew they were cartoons and not real.
Come to think of it pretty much all of the shows I grew up with have been changed, adapted, made politically correct over the years and I have to wonder why it was all needed. I’m not talking about the obvious slurs against race or gender, but simple things like slap stick humor.
Are we really afraid our children are going to watch Big Bird talking to a creature only he could see for many years and it’s going to do something bad to them? News flash. Many children already have imaginary friends and for the most part it doesn’t do them any harm at all. It’s called having an active imagination.
It makes me wonder.
What will they release next that you, or I, grew up with and place a warning notice on it that it may not be suitable for today’s children?
