Cartoon World Is Playing It Safe

The worst case of terrorism in U.S. history sent animator Adam Burton into panic about his fictional character, Hector con Carne, and a putrid smelling gun.

“The Smell of Vengeance” episode of Burton’s show, “Evil con Carne,” seemed to mock the Sept. 11 hijacked plane attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and he was mortified.

He wasn’t alone. Television executives immediately reviewed their programming to make sure the images beamed out to this country’s youngest viewers did not create more stress and confusion. Nickelodeon, the top-rated and most watched channel among kids, stayed with its formula of cartoons, variety shows and repeats of vintage television programs on Nick at Nite.

But Cyma Zarghami, executive vice president and general manager of the cable channels, said “business as usual” is a difficult strategy.

“The problem is, the rescue effort is becoming a lot more dismal, and the message is soon going to be turning to helping the families of the victims,” she said. “It’s going to be very intense.”

Burton’s “The Smell of Vengeance” is typical of the dilemma for animators. The show featured evil characters shown aiming an oversized stink gun at New York City and unleashing a green cloud that sent swarms of people into coughing fits.

“It was very silly, and they were supposed to get out of the city because it had been shot with a gun of skunks and dirty socks,” said Linda Simensky, senior vice president of original animation for Cartoon Network. But the next scene--a bird’s-eye view of the contaminated New York City--was not just eerie to Simensky. It was heartbreaking.

“There are the [World Trade Center] twin towers, and you see tiny, little people hopping off the roof of the towers into the water,” Simensky said. “I mean, two weeks ago you wouldn’t have thought about it. What were the chances of anyone jumping out of the World Trade Center?”

The chances were unimaginable, and most cable and broadcast networks carrying animated programs have edited or temporarily shelved some of their shows since the Sept. 11 attacks. Burton reworked “The Smell of Vengeance,” and placed it in Kansas. The Midwestern victims evacuate the smelly city in an orderly fashion, in their cars. But executives at the network said the revised episode has no air date in the near future.

Some studio executives decided to simply avoid any perceived parallels to the attacks. A scene in an old episode of “Cubix,” a futuristic new animated series on Kids’ WB!, provoked executives to prohibit any rebroadcasts. In the episode, a “fantastical structure” collapses.

“The image of the building falling and the smoke rising is something we feel uncomfortable with,” said Donna Friedman, the network’s executive vice president.

That level of comfort is really aimed at parents. The success of children’s programming lies in making sure parents feel confident that their kids will find, for the most part, wholesome entertainment. It’s one of the reasons that cartoons play a special role in many households--as both early-morning babysitter to unattended children and as the most riveting form of media those early risers encounter.

Over the last two weeks, many television executives wanted to make sure parents believed their children had a safe haven, away from the barrage of news images that adults devoured from prime time and into late night. Most children have lived with tension since the morning of Sept. 11, even if they don’t understand. They have been surrounded by emotionally raw, sad adults, and psychologists say that even if cartoons are violent by nature, they should not be “lite” versions of hijackings and crashes.

“The world around them is responding to something that is so heinous,” said Marc A. Nemiroff, a child psychologist in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area who has spent the last two weeks counseling children. “If they see it in some silly cartoon violence, then it becomes confusing.”

Children do not begin to separate fantasy from reality until they’re about 5, and some are unable to begin differentiating the concepts until they are as old as 7, according to psychologists.

“My recommendation to my patients right now is to co-view as much as possible,” said Jack Wetter, associate clinical professor at UCLA School of Medicine, who specializes in stress in children. “They’ve held a lot of movie releases right now like movies with plane hijackings. If that’s upsetting for adults, can you imagine over the next month or two if kids see something that looks familiar to them? If a 7-year-old sees someone hanging out a window, even if there’s funny music in the background, these images could be very traumatic.”

Nickelodeon cut out an episode of the popular “Rug Rats” animated series in which one of the characters becomes a giant Godzilla-like girl, trampling down tall buildings in a city.

“We ... thought kids might be more sensitive to something like that,” said a spokeswoman for Nickelodeon, Marianne Romano.

Executives at HBO Family pulled an episode of “Tin Tin” that deals with a hijacked plane. And at Fox Kids, executives altered the schedule to excise “Infernal Wedding,” the premiere episode of a new show called “The Ripping Friends.” They will also not air “Attack from Outer Space,” an episode of “Transformers: Robots in Disguise,” which follows the ongoing conflict between the Autobots and Predacons.

Fox Kids executives declined to provide details of the canned episode to The Times, but a press kit distributed earlier this year describes the show as a conflict that unravels during a celebration headed by Dr. Onishi, one of the most brilliant scientists on Earth.

In a detail that seems chilling to read now, the press kit mentions that Onishi’s son, Kohi, watches the millennium events unfold on television and tries to reach his father through a video cell phone.

“Will the Autobots get to Dr. Onishi in time to prevent the Predacons from inflicting mass destruction on Earth?” the press kit asks. “Or will the Predacons reign supreme?”

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Times staff writer Greg Braxton contributed to this report.