Worst moral message in a kids cartoon

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Kathleen V

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I remember reading a review, years and years ago, of some Care Bears video from a parent. They generally praised the animation and things, but they were horrified to realize that the underlying message of the video was very obviously "conformity is good."

I'm sure you guys have seen cartoons that end up having a moral message, either overt or implied, that you disagree with, so post examples here. Please explain a little bit about the episode, what the message was and why you disagree with it for the benefit of people who haven't seen it.

I remember a Tiny Toons episode "Slaughterhouse Jive," in which the kids take a tour of one of Montana Max's slaughterhouses, that portrayed meat eating as an awful, immoral thing. Montana Max is so chastened by the end of a "Clockwork Orange" type experience that the other toons put him through that he blows up the factory. I thought that was a horrible message to send to kids who don't have full control over what they eat.
 
I mentioned this one a while back, but the Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode "Defenders of Justice" really bugged me. While I get that the writers wanted to do a "stand up for yourself" moral, it came out much more strongly as "pacifism is stupid and will just get you wiped out".
 
Anyone00, I'd say that your attempt to connect the themes of the Iron Giant to homosexuality in that way is spurious reasoning at best, and it CERTAINLY lies far outside any possible intention by the creators.

But most importantly, it is also leading us in a very politically-charged direction that this forum is not the proper place to explore further, so I would appreciate it if we could drop this line of discussion. Thank you.
 
Ok, I'll find the audio clip soon for you guys, but until then; how about Lion King?

I been hearing a lot of ppl (Well one) saying it gives a very bad message for kids. Not being yourself, being like everyone else, etc.
 
To whoever was criticizing the morality in Invader ZIM.. You don't know Jhonen Vasquez very well, do you? He doesn't make cartoons or comics to teach morals, he just creates entertainment. IZ pushed the envelope of what is acceptable in a kids cartoon and no episode of the show ever tried to teach a moral. It was always just crazy [STUFF] between Zim and Dib.

Same goes with the violence in PPG. PPG never tries to tell a moral, it's just mindless silly action.

I completely agree with the comments about A Little Mermaid. What the heck was Disney thinking? Ariel SOLD HER SOUL, disobeyed her parents, and 'they all lived happily ever after' Seriously.. WHAT?

This isn't exactly a moral, but i was always bugged by Raven on Teen Titans. She's supposed to be the daughter of a demon, and yet kids are somehow supposed to like and look up to this character? I really wish she wasnt demon-offspring and was just 'some goth with powers' becuase otherwise she's an interesting character.

I also remember an episode of Batman: Brave and the Bold, where Batman teamed up with a demon to stop a bad guy. Really? They're trying to teach children that demons are their friends!? What?

Also there was an episode of Fairly Oddparents where Vicky looks in Timmy's journal/diary and humiliates him. When Timmy does the same to her, the show acts as if Timmy is wayyy out of line and mean becuase he read a girl's diary, and in the end, he gets punished for it. Hello? She read his first! She had it coming to her! the show basically said "It's okay to read a boy's diary and humilate him, but it's WRONG to do the same to a girl!"

This also isn't exactly a moral, but most Tom & Jerry cartroons feature Spike or Jerry tormenting Tom, but the minute Tom defends himself against the two, Tom is treated as if HE'S the bad guy, and in the end, suffers a whooole lot of bodily harm from one of the two. (Jerry's still my favorite character, but he can be a real a-hole at times)

There was an episode of Dexter's Lab where Dee-Dee got her own secret-place, and Dexter snuck inside. Dee-Dee decided to punish Dexter by trapping him in a box and playing in his lab and destroying everything in it. You know, every episode features Dee-Dee sneaking in and destroying Dexter's Lab.. isn't he justified in sneaking into her secret-place?

I guess those last two are more 'double-standards' than they are morals. Oh well.

Moderator Note: Please do not evade the auto-censor. Thank you.
 
I could probably put a bunch of environmental toons in a bag and draw one at random to use in this thread, but I’m going to go with “Once Upon A Forest”. I watched that movie a few weeks ago and it was practically propaganda; I’m all for a clean environment, but I believe Hal Hinson said it best.

That’s exactly what the movie came across as teaching. The ending tried to show that humans are capable of doing good things, but only after we murdered some badger’s parents and nearly destroyed an ecosystem. I think “FernGully” was more subtle…
 
Now that's just racial prejudice. The Demon Anti-Defamation League would have a thing or to to say about that kind of attitude! :raven2:
 
The Separatists essentially wants to wipe out a village of pacifists. The leader who doesn't want to fight is depicted as stubborn and stupid and the village is saved by the Jedi who blow up the Separatist fleet.
 
:D In all seriousness though I don't see how you can see Raven's parentage as an example of bad morals in a kids show. Raven never got to choose who her father was, should she be held accountable for Trigon's atrocities?
 
Not that I'm a total pacifist or anything, but it always puzzled me why they would make superhero shows like The Powerpuff Girls and target the message of "The way to solve your problems is by using violence... but remember, it's JUSTIFIED violence." to kids. But I haven't really heard anything bad come from that, so I'm just shrugging it off.


 
Well technically, she did only sell her voice.

But now that I think of it, there was some weird things going on in the Proud Family. Wasn't there that one episode where someone wrote graffiti all over someone's house by the end of the episode, and they never bothered to explain who did it?
 
The original Transformers series in the eighties in general and the movie in particular, horrified me watching them years later. The general messages of both is that war is cool and nobody dies from it, but when they do it's awesome to watch and played with heavy metal music to show how cool it is. The movie was animated torture porn for kids. I also was disturbed by the series' black and white view of good and evil and how the Decepticons were irredeemably bad no matter what. But most appalling to me was how I remembered that I used to LOVE this show as a kid. Eighties shows always had the worse morals for kids whether it was the glamourization of war in action cartoons or the promoting of conformity in the "humor" cartoons. These cartoons influenced the way me and my friends interacted with other children and between them and my screwed up family I'm surprised I didn't turn out more messed up that I actually am.
 
I remember in the first Pokemon movie, when the Pokemon were fighting clone versions of themselves, everyone said that they hated the Pokemon fighting eachother like that. I thoght it was hilarious, since the entire show is nothing but fighting.
 
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