Play Meter

FROM THE EDITOR Beep, Beep: Watch out for dangerous characters! happened to see a newspaper article (‘ ‘Bad News, Dudes: Teachers Hate Ninja’’) explaining a survey of teachers from around the country. It determined why many nursery schools are banning or discouraging any involvement with the latest character craze, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. According to school teachers, the turtles are provoking violence in youngsters. Diane Levin, an associate professor of education at Wheelock College, stated, ‘‘The turtles encourage violent and anti-social behavior among young children and have a disturbing effect on learning, behavior, and play.’ Karate-style kicks are common sights on day care playgrounds, explained the assistant director of a popular day care center. If you don’t watch them, they can get pretty rough, she is quoted as saying in the article. Even the director of the National Coalition on Television Violence is convinced that the turtles are a bad influence on young minds. These opinions are pretty strong against these mutants on the half-shell. I wonder where the vigilantes were when my mind was soaking up Wylie Coyote, who was constantly trying to find ways to annihilate the innocent Roadrunner, but was usually the brunt of his own violence. Or how about Daffy Duck, who had his feathers blown off so many times, it’s a wonder he has any left. And remember how Porky Pig was always trying to blast our beloved Bugs Bunny into Kingdom Come? Oh wait, we can’t forget Mighty Mouse, the little rodent always saving the damsel in distress from the clutches of the nastyand I mean really nastyvillain with the handlebar moustache. There was scarcely a scene in those cartoons void of violence. And even the non-violent scenes were usually a time out for the masterminds to think up another dastardly deed for an unsuspecting victim. Wylie Coyote had dynamite blowing up in his face, rocks falling on top of his head, and trucks flattening him like a penny on a railroad PLAY METER 10 AUGUST 1991 track. I was a child, but somehow I quickly learned that the Roadrunner, in all of his innocence, was never going to ‘‘getit.’’ It wasn’t even good vs. evil. Roadrunner was not the bad guy; Wylie Coyote wasn’t the bad guy either. He was just a poor wolf that hadn’t eaten for awhilemaybe never from the looks of things. We loved both characters, sometimes even wishing Wylie would get his manjust sometimes because we really didn’t want anything to happen to Roadrunner. And then there was Mighty Mouse. Villainous deeds, indeed, when the bad handlebar-moustache-villain tied the virtuous girl onto the railroad tracks or put her on a conveyor belt headed to the giant teeth of a deadly saw. We hid our eyes in gory expectations and cheered when our hero swooped down and saved her in the nick of time. Yes, this time it was good winning out over evil. And again, even as children we sensed that it wasn’t real life. These were our heroes and they did bad things to bad people. Have you had enough or can you stand to think about Tom and Jerry or Sylvester and Tweety; plenty of violence among these lovable, yet devious, characters. Tails in light sockets, various objects plunging down on top of them, and it would be hard to count how many times they were beaned over the head with one thing or another. While you are trying to think back to the days when you spent your Saturday morning glued to the TV set for the cartoon heroes, don’t forget the Three Stooges. Their violence was potent. Things happened to them even worse than the make-believe cartoon characters, and they were real guys! Did we imitate their savagery? Now there are the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Here are pet turtles who were the victims of some radioactive ooze, which changed them into human-sized mutants. A rat, who is their master, taught them ninja moves and now they are ready to fight evil. It’s been nearly 35 years since I was the cartoons-on- Saturday age. And perhaps I am viewing things a bit differentlyI should hope so, you say. But even so, I find it hard to believe that four turtles, named after Renaissance painters, could figure so heavily in the plunge of kids values and morals. I think the problem goes much deeper to the values and morals that are instilled in us at home on a daily basis. Our parents taught us right from wrong and we lived our lives on those teachings. We respected our teachers and were in trouble if we did something wrong. That was real life. It’s too easy for parents struggling to maintain a household, often singlehandedly, to blame everyone else for the destruction of values in kids. Unfortunately, right now it’s the pizza-chomping Ninja Turtles. The coinop industry has taken its share of blame for the deterioration of values in today’s youth. Remember back to the days of Ronnie Lamm, who swore that video games were the curse of children everywhere. How about the cities that banned the games, or at least tried to? There is no doubt that the coin-op industry is providing a wonderful avenue of fun for kids. I never cease to wonder when I see a crowd around a dazzling new game. The ACME and AMOA shows are exciting and there’s always something new. I’m sorry that there are so many shortsighted people in this world trying to take the wind out of our sails. But I’m happy that there are so many in the industry finding ways to put the fun back where it belongsin the hands of the children, tomorrow’s leaders. [J Thine Crone) Valerie Cognevich Editor