Since I posted about what kids in Belgium watch on television, I figured I should look around a bit to see what are considered cartoons by kids in other countries. I found a few duds, but one that seemed to interest Caleb a bit without being too out there (hmmmm… a flatulent pig, eh?) was a Polish cartoon called Bolek & Lolek (”Дождливые каникулы”).

Apparently it was a very popular show from the 1960’s to 1980’s:

Bolek & Lolek, the most famous cartoon series coming from the talented animators of the Peoples Republic of Poland (Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa). It was hugely popular among the children in the Eastern block nations such as USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, GDR/DDR, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, etc. Several generations of the Soviet kids (from the end of the 1960s to the mid-80s) grew up watching the series.

Caleb enjoyed most of the clip but then had a problem when a dog started chasing a cat. (Check out the show at the end of the post…)

Interestingly enough, this whole recent cartoon-focus for me started because I wanted to show him a few of the cartoons I remember watching as a child. So I started searching for shows such as Tom & Jerry, Bugs Bunny, and other “kids” cartoons. The first clip I found was a Tom & Jerry show called “Texas Tom” which from the intro seemed fun because it looked like it would be based in the Southwest (I don’t ever remember Tom & Jerry taking place anywhere but a house). Seconds into the show and the mouse (I think it is Jerry) was being dragged along the ground and over a cactus by a rope. That was followed up quickly with the mouse smacking the cat in the face with part of the cactus.

Sweet.

I was already uncomfortable with how the show was unfolding, but Caleb looked at me in shock when the mouse hit the cat with the cactus. Needless to say we turned it off very quickly.

I guess I find the violence in the cartoon quite troubling. I don’t ever remember the cartoons I watched as being so violent. They must have been less violent, right? (The Road Runner and Coyote, Elmer Fudd, and even Bugs Bunny cartoons come to mind as rather violent once I start thinking about it…)

When I really think about it, the cartoons I saw at a very young age were quite violent. For some reason, I don’t know, maybe because I care about what my son is exposed to, I don’t want him watching shows specifically created for children that contain that much violence, or any violence at all!

Caleb sees maybe an hour or two of television a month whereas I think most kids his age are regularly consuming around an hour or so a day — I can only wonder what kind of content they are being regularly exposed to. If I had the notion that I could innocently expose him to a Tom & Jerry cartoon (which I have very fond memories of), why wouldn’t other parents share the same view? (Okay, they might pick Bugs Bunny or something that seems more wholesome, but Bugs is quite violent as well…)

What in the world are people thinking when they create shows for kids with this kind of content? And seriously, are parents supposed to be okay with letting their kids ingest this kind of pointless junk? I guess I find it baffling — how is hitting a cat in the face with a cactus funny? Seriously!?! And why would a child laugh at that? Why wouldn’t they cry and react as if the mouse was doing something really mean to the cat, as Caleb did?

I really don’t want to be tyrant about what my son is exposed to, but I guess I see no point in intentionally exposing him to violence through a children’s television show when there is so much violence that happens in real life anyway.