Cartoons ‘not suitable’ for children

School holidays are around the corner and for many kids, the TV, especially cartoons, is what they are looking forward to as their main source of entertainment. And as GRACE WACHIRA writes, it is important for parents and guardians to be wary of the content their young ones are exposed to

1. The Loud House

The cartoon, alongside the Legend of the Korra, Hey Arnold, Clarance, Steven Universe and Adventure Time, were banned in Kenya by the Kenya Film Classification Board (KFCB) in 2017. According to the board’s chief executive Ezekiel Mutua, they all had scenes where homosexual behaviour were being glorified, normalised and glamourised. KFCB asked pay-TV services provider MultiChoice to stop airing the shows because they did not uphold Kenya’s family values. In one of the scenes in The Loud House, for instance, a child is dropped off at a friend’s house for a sleepover by his two dads. It’s not hard to see why KFCB banned the cartoons, although they were still available on American pay-TV network Nickelodeon.

2. SpongeBob Squarepants

SpongeBob and his friends Mr Krabs and Patrick Star live at the bottom of the sea, which is imaginative, but each character in the cartoon has unique weak traits. They also lead carefree lives and when they err, they have no one to punish them. The cartoon may cause children to want to get away with faults and not get punished for it. This cartoon has been banned in countries world over including US, Russia, Europe, Australia, and later in more than 120 countries.

3. The Simpsons

There are still a lot of arguments in countries about this provocative cartoon because of the decay of family values and inadequate examples of children’s behaviour, for example, Bart Simpson. It is a controversial cartoon with some of its episodes being banned in the US because of its show of violence, humiliation of family values, disorderly behaviour and insulting public figures and countries. Despite that, the cartoon is still aired without sensors from the original broadcast and are available uncut on DVD and online. It is, however, banned in many countries including Brazil, Japan, England, Canada, Australia, Mexico, France and Germany.

4. Ren and Stimpy

Nickelodeon’s Ren and Stimpy does not censor or cover up its frontward profanity, sexual concepts and subliminal messages. The show is known for its hip-humor, bare butts and harsh language with some episodes shockingly violent. In one episode, Ren openly tells Stimpy what he’s going to do to him and describes in detail how he will gorge his eyes out and even cut his lips.

5. Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends

While it may look harmless and imaginative, one of the episodes of this toon has Bloo, the main character, tells Mac to go watch some adult videos in Frankie’s room. This is just one of the episodes that depicts children’s curiosity that makes them watch adult videos. While they never watched any as Frankie’s videos were toons, the message is sent home.

6. The Grimm Adventures of Billy and Mandy

Protagonists Mandy and Billy have a friend, Grim, a skeleton that hangs out with them and helps them using his superpowers. It is out rightly gothic and is not recommended for religious families. There are spiritual lines not meant to be crossed when they involve children who are so young and cannot wrap their minds around life and death. Mandy exhibits depression tendencies and the cartoon may in the long run encourage depressive thoughts and tendencies among children.

7. Caillou

This show is a big hit with many toddlers since the main character is a toddler. Caillou is a temperamental child with tantrums on end. He throws them at his parents and gets away with it. It is not ideal for a household that has strong family values pegged on discipline and self-control. It is not okay to throw tantrums every time something doesn’t go your way.

8. Pokemon

In some episode of Pokemon, there was a strange explosion accompanied by bright blue and red flashes with a frequency of 12Hz. As a result, children later started to complain about their health. Some of the symptoms were partial vision loss, convulsions and loss of consciousness. More than 600 of them were hospitalised. It was banned on TV with the incident labelled ‘Pokemon Shock’.

9. Tom and Jerry

The classic ‘cat and mouse’ series of cartoons, some made more than 70 years ago, carry a warning for subscribers to Amazon Prime Instant Video. Tom and Jerry, once a staple for children TV entertainment, is being presented with a cautionary note about ‘ethnic and racial prejudices’. In the subsequent decades, there have been numerous re-launched television versions of the series, with varying styles and varying degrees of critical approval and claims of racism have been longstanding. When the original versions were shown on US television in the 1960s, the producers, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, had to edit some scenes.

10. Looney Tunes

These toons used to be in the heart of cartoons of the past decades. The cartoon underwent massive censoring as they were overwhelmingly offensive to even air on mainstream TV or video. A lot of them contained dated racial stereotypes, usually edited from TV broadcast. One specific episode called ‘One Beer’ had the characters want to steal a bottle of beer and drink it all. The toons were revived in 1987 and runs to-date. So, you better exercise caution.