Thatababy by Paul Trap for November 16, 2014

Actually, it wasn’t government regulations, it was parent’s groups. They teamed up to drive away the “awful” super-hero cartoons that dominated from 1966 – 1968 and were “too violent.” This was during the time of “Space Ghost,” “Shazzan!” the original “Spider-Man” series, Hanna-Barbera’s “Fantastic Four” series (which mostly adapted the original Lee and Kirby stories), etc. We then got two decades of the blandest stuff you’d ever want to see, such as “The Archie Show” (with a Big Moose who couldn’t even THINK of beating anyone up), “Scooby-Doo,” most of the stuff mentioned in today’s “Thatababy,” and more. They also took the occasion to slice up classic theatrical cartoons, including taking every shotgun blast out of the hilarious “Duck! Wabbit! Duck!” During this period, no one could have a gun on these cartoons, not even the police!

This was all done in the belief that, if we removed violence from cartoons, then real violence would go away. It didn’t. Just like, when the Comics Code Authority was created to combat allegations that comic books created juvenile delinquency, juvenile delinquency didn’t go away. Just like, when Dungeons and Dragons was under attack for causing teen suicide. Or, more recently, the thinking is that if violent video games went away, school shootings and the like will go away.

None of these attempts came from the government, but from “concerned” citizens groups," nor any censorship groups that grew from them.