Yeah, it was pretty tame in my early childhood -- He-Man basically never used his sword to do anything except deflect laser blasts. He'd never actually punch a bad guy, he's just toss them into a conveniently placed mud pit or something along those lines. GI Joe would have laser rifles galore, but no one would ever actually get hit and any vehicle that exploded would always have the operator ejecting moments before it happened.

I'm not sure when things got outright violent, but the two shows I remember escalating things -- people actually getting punch in the face -- was the early 90s Batman: The Animated Series and X-Men shows. Not sure why it suddenly became okay at that point.

"Laff-a-lympics" was the best! All my favorite characters together each week, like a huge crossover event! The only episode I remember was when the Really Rotten team finally won, legitimately despite all their attempts to cheat.

Love "Laff-a-lympics!" Some of the "sports" were actually pretty clever. I always rooted for Yogi's team, as the underdogs.

Seeing the Rottens win must have startled everybody. Even Snagglepuss comments on what a "first" it was. Though I never rooted for them, I can recall thinking that it was actually kind of nice that they won for a change. Even they sort of deserved a break, once.

Now I'm going to have to dig out that DVD set....

I think Batman TAS was actually the turning point, yes. My "favorite" example of the powers that be going overboard with antiviolence was making Popeye cartoons where he wasn't allowed to fight.

Another Blu-ray, Tom And Jerry: The Complete Cinemascope Cartoon Collection, is being released on February 9th.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DQF98PW4/?tag=imwan-20

I'm not sure that I saw any Frankenstein Jr./Impossibles cartoons, or very few; I was aware of them since the
Saturday Morning cartoons were always advertised in comic books of the era.

I did watch Wait 'Til Your Father Comes Home but I never thought it was particularly worth my time. Aren't the
Family Guy characters essentially a redesign of that household? At least I always thought Meg was taken from
this show at least. But it's all essentially Honeymooners / Flintstones / All In The Family repackaged I think.

"Frankenstein Jr." was re-run on Saturday mornings in the 1970s, after strictures on violence came to be relaxed somewhat. I vaguely recall seeing it. Did not know until later that it had originally run years earlier. "The Herculoids," "Space Ghost," and "Jonny Quest" also appeared on Saturday mornings around that time. Only the last two really got my attention.

I've never seen either "The Impossibles" or "Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home." I'm only aware of them from brief notices in cartoon reference works. Apparently "Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home" was an early attempt to do an "edgy" animated sitcom.

It's only "edgy" if you think "Father Knows Best" is edgy.

It was edgier than Father Knows Best. There was a deliberate attempt to push the norms of television and animated television in particular.

R.I.P.

The Magilla Gorilla Show, in its entirety, is being released on Blu-ray this Tuesday:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DYPLZ9SX/?tag=imwan-20

And you know, to this day I've never seen anything with Magilla Gorilla. I've been aware that such a character existed for many years, but never seen anything more than a few scattered references to it.

And now the entire series is available for your viewing pleasure!

I posted this in another thread, but I did finally get to see a HB Fantastic Four cartoon the other night and mentioned how I can't believe how much punching they showed for this time period! The Thing was just punching mobs of mole men directly in the face and head, I was surprised to see that considering the show was made in 1967.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5jiw3b

But then, I was also watching a few episodes of the Adam West Batman and there's tons of punching and kicking people in that show, so maybe the censors weren't out in force yet?

The censors were a '70s thing. In the '60s we could still watch Wile E. Coyote fall off a cliff while being blown up by a stick of dynamite and not think people could copy and survive it.

I think the concern was growing by the late 1960s, but yes, it hit in full force in the early 1970s. Even prime-time TV series were affected by efforts to scale back on violence. I recall reading years ago that one early 1970s prime-time season was called "the one-punch season" because so many series went to the trouble of reducing the amount of violence they depicted. I tried looking it up online just now, but all I'm getting is information on a certain anime series....

The complete Wacky Races series is coming to Blu-ray this Tuesday:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F2YF175G/?tag=imwan-20

I enjoyed those as a kid.

Watch for the 'what Daddy doesn't know won't hurt him' moment and make up your own mind about what the show was suggesting...



...and I watched all these shows as a kid on Saturday morning TV. Including WTYFGH. I don't have a clear memory of any individual episodes, but I know I watched it.

I think this must be the pilot episode...it was a segment on something called "Love, American Style" (as was Happy Days originally) that I've never seen. It actually contains the scene where their daughter comes home after having physically fought off a guy she went on a date with. It's played for laughs but...wow.

Guess I was born just a little too late ever to have seen "Wacky Races." I've not even seen an episode on one of those cartoon sampler DVDs. I do vaguely recall having seen the early 1970s DePatie-Freleng series "Bailey's Comets," which seems to have been a fairly obvious take-off on "Wacky Races."

I've barely even heard of "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home" outside this thread. Guess it came along too early to find its audience.

Bearing in mind, because I live in Australia, these things were most likely two or three years old before they were broadcast over here. This might be why I saw them - I was watching shows that were many years old without knowing it. Land Of The Giants, I Dream of Jeannie, etc - these were all new to me but I was a little kid so I only knew something was 'old' if it was in B&W.

So I was most likely watching reruns anyway, but I saw all of these alongside The Herculoids and stuff of that vintage.