Remember how kids could grow up watching the Three Stooges and uncensored Bugs Bunny mayhem?

Then all that had to go. The argument was that they were too violent for kids, but I'm not so sure about it.

I think it was all a push by advertisers to get shows on the air that would lull kids into a false sense of security, so they'd be more susceptible to a media blitz. In the happy friendly worlds of Dora and Blue's Clues, everything said on the television can be trusted. Cue the ads.

With the Stooges, there was always some kind of con running. Some guy with slick hair and a pencil moustache would be trying to set the Stooges up for a fall... Or maybe the Stooges themselves were perpetrating the shady operation... And one could never tell when Moe was going to haul off and shove Curly's head into a letter press, or Larry would get his hair torn out, or Shemp do an about-face with a shovel over his shoulder with violent consequences. The world of the Stooges was nasty, brutish, and short. Why would the kids watching that think the ads were anything more than what the Stooges were up to?

Same for Bugs Bunny and the rest of the Looney Tunes. They made hamburger out of sacred cows. They'd point out the follies of society and mock what Madison Avenue holds dear. They showed how to spot a sucker and then take him for everything he had. How tough would your sales resistance be after seeing a short with Daffy Duck trying to sell snake oil?

That's why they had to go. And now we're raising a nation of suckers.