Are Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang too mean for today's kids?

[pokerfan]

Good grief! That's the claim of one father.

“The show is riddled with the kids calling each other stupid, dumb, and blockheads. There is continuous teasing and bullying. Charlie Brown is supposed to be the hero, instead he is kicked and demeaned at every turn, even by the adults giving out candy,” Buzz Bishop, otherwise known as DadCamp, wrote at Babble.com recently.

http://moms.today.com/_news/2012/10/24/14631085-are-charlie-brown-and-the-peanuts-gang-too-mean-for-todays-kids-good-grief

But, isn't that the point? We see the pain Charlie goes through and empathize with him. It's not pro-bullying. It's an anti-bullying message.

[bluestateguy]

1. This is a joke right?

I need an aspirin.

[pokerfan]

16. oh, were that it were

He seems serious. Always possible that he's whooshing the Internet.

[hifiguy]

2. The Onion, right?

No? Ye gads.

[pinboy3niner]

3. Charles Schulz had it covered...

[choie]

4. oh my god! if only...

kids these days were as innocent and nice as the Peanuts!

[nolabear]

5. I understand that Sally's milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.

[Indpndnt]

14. Sally lives on the wild side?

[GoneOffShore]

6. Never thought Peanuts was a kid's comic anyway.

Kind of like Pogo or Calvin and Hobbes or The Far Side.

[tjwash]

8. Rocky and Bullwinkle too.

Just like peanuts...a TON of stuff that you don't pick on until you see them as an adult.

[GoneOffShore]

13. I'd forgotten Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Heard June Foray interviewed the other week. She's 94(?) and still doing voices.

[titaniumsalute]

7. Are you kidding me? PEANUTS?

This has to be a gag.

[woo me with science]

9. Let the flamewar begin.

http://assets.amuniversal.com/f9456d8020fc012ea5cb00163e41dd5b

[Posteritatis]

10. Shades of Sesame Street being declared unfit for children a few years back. (nt)

[davidn3600]

11. I always found Lucy to be mean

Always pulling the football away.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

12. That's nothing....

I recently stumbled across Joyce Kauffman (batshit crazy right wing talk radio host, I mean truly insane) who claimed that Sesame Street was enabling child sex abuse by claiming that "monsters" were cute and cuddly and friendly, instead of scary and despisable.

Thus, PBS needed to be defunded.

I shit you not.

[MichiganVote]

15. My kids watched Peanuts. They're fine. And so are millions of others.

Anybody who has had siblings knows that Peanuts is nuttin' compared to what siblings do to each other. Brother.

[muriel_volestrangler]

17. He's trolling, I think

or, at least, writing to get links like Today. It seems a little surprising that he complains it's not right for a 2 and 5 year old. Well, duh - it would be completely lost on a 2 year old. That goes without saying. And it'd be a pretty sophisticated 5 year old to get much out of too. Peanuts was written for people who read newspapers - and I don't think many 5 year olds have ever been the audience for it. How many 5 year olds get "The Psychiatrist is in"? You have to give them a few years at school before they'll get the references it has always used.

[pokerfan]

22. I hope (nt)

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

18. Charlie Brown was a stalker

Stalked that little red haired girl. Patriarchal male gaze asshole!

[MichiganVote]

19. My generation grew up with the Woody Woodpecker cartoons. They were hilarious.

[xfundy]

20. Much better that kids get taken weekly to see

a man with great abs oozing blood from being nailed to a cross and stabbed in the gut.

[MicaelS]

21. Sounds like those morons who got the Looney Tunes..

And Tom and Jerry censored on TV because they were "too violent". Fucking idiots.