Washington Post on Flash Animation
filed Under: Uncategorized
Katherine Ellison, the Pulitzer Price-winning investigative journalist, recently 
pointed her pen (free reg. required) at the Flash-animated series ‘Happy Tree Friends.’ In last weekend’s Washington Post Sunday Outlook section, Ellison, the author of the much lauded ‘The Mommy Brain,’ recently caught her 6-year old son watching an episode of the worldwide hit ‘Happy Tree Friends.’ If you haven’t kept up, ‘HTF’ was created by Rhode Montijo and Kenn Navarro, who was recently featured here at Cold, Hard Flash.
In the Post article, Ellison makes a comparison between HTF and ‘Tom & Jerry,’ and goes to great length to distinguish between acceptable cartoon violence and the unacceptable:
“Tom & Jerry”… had creativity, with surprising plot twists and a richly emotive score.
Aren’t we splitting the hair a touch here, Katherine? I love ‘Tom & Jerry’ as much as the next guy, but does an emotive score really counteract the effects of violence?
I don’t have kids, so it’s hard for me to relate to Ellison’s shocking 
revelation that her son was watching HTF with a sheepish grin. But she’s surely fighting an uphill battle, and aiming her attacks in the wrong direction. The type of violence in HTF pales in comparison to the blood-thirst witnessed in every other video game currently on the shelves. The audience for these titles is profoundly bigger, and the experience far more real and immersive. This doesn’t make the violence in HTF any more acceptable for 6-year olds, but Ellison might want to focus her anger in a more appropriate direction.
Here’s what Navarro had to say on the topic in 
his April ‘05 interview here at Cold, Hard Flash.
It’s a strange double standard when nobody cries foul when the Coyote falls off the cliff or when Tom and Jerry go at it with swords. We just take it to the next level. Besides, they all come back in the next episode so no character really stays dead in HTF land.
Ellison’s piece also mentions JibJab’s wildly-successful ‘This Land’ (incorrectly dubbed ‘This is Your Land’), and also suggests marching in a cultural war against entertainment like HTF. In this day, when the FCC is lining up new jurisdictional powers over Cable, Satellite, Broadband Networks and the Internet, the liberal-minded Ellison should stick to her First Amendment guns and enforce her own broadcast standards within the walls of her Marin County home.
Tags: Happy Tree Friends
October 30th, 2005 at 2:44 pm
Ellison is as you state, gifhting a dangerous game she will NEVER win. She’s probably got a book in pipeline she’s lloking to promote.
Peronaly, I think it speaks volumes about her as a mother. She’s failing misserably in her fundemental duty to control her children. Letting her 6 year old to roam the internet freely is surely unforgivalbe - anybody know how to contact the approprirate state authoraties. Her child could have been exposed to content var more likely to soil her childs mind.
Anyhows HTF aren’t so different to lillo and Stich in the Simpsons are they.
October 30th, 2005 at 9:36 pm
This chick and people like her are the problem with America.
Who really gives a shit what your child stumbles upon on the web - I mean, I could see if it was hard core porn her son was eyeing, but it’s a damn funny cartoon that just so happens to have alot of blood and guts.
why does she give a shit about the advertiser’s reputation? Is she trying to get a job? - buttering them up perhaps?
It’s all wank. She’ll never go anywhere with this.
October 31st, 2005 at 11:35 am
I agree with her. Don’t get mad unless you understand what she is actually writing about.
I am a staunch defender of the rights of cartoonists and freedom of speech, but she isn’t advocating to get rid of the cartoon. She is more interested in questioning specific advertisers for advertising in controversial, non-child friendly places, which I think is a good way to protest something. At the end she wonders why the camp didn’t supervise net activity where one of her sons first saw htf. Good question. And does anyone know if the htf website is filtered or not on some filter programs?
She also obviously did her homework instead of reacting to htf like a crazed right-winger christian who simply demands things be banned without one shred of evidence or research into what they are attacking.
I don’t agree with her thinking htf is less worthwhile than tom and jerry. It’s more visceral and graphic but the level of violence is the same. The supposed morals in tom and jerry don’t actually exist as much as she’d like to think, either. She’s no expert on cartoons, that’s for sure.
It is a heckuva lot harder for parents to stop kids from seeing questionable things today than when I was a kid. But frankly if I had a child that young, the internet wouldn’t work unless I was at the computer. Simple control like this is all that is necessary and I think that was a huge mistake on her part regardless of the difficulty involved in keeping kids from the net. I certainly wouldn’t want a 6 year old seeing htf and I too would be mad if some dumb kids campground was being irresponsible enough to have unsupervised internet access that caused this.
No, she can’t go anywhere with it. I think she is probably smart enough to know that too. That’s why she is questioning adveritsers, not the cartoon. So she doesn’t like it, big deal. Very understandable. She doesn’t seem very interested in protesting the show even though she says she would like to, hypothetically. But she’s smart enough to know it wouldn’t work.
If a show does something offensive, like makes fun of black people, you go to the advertisers of the show and tell them you aren’t happy. When advertisers get enough hate mail they pull out and the show loses money. And why should an insurance company be advertising on a violent cartoon show for adults? I can understand Sony Playstation advertising there but not Kaiser Permanente or Toyota. She raises a good question. Third party bulk ad buying? Whatever. Irresponsible and asking for a lawsuit is what that is. Big reputable companies need to get on the ball.
But what she is saying is a good idea: talk to other parents about the issue of shock art being so readily accessible to kids. I believe in freedom of expression but I can understand having shock art like htf just being available to just anyone as kind of unsettling. I love that it’s there and that I can see it but people like her do have valid points about accessibility. Make a ruckus, get it in front of the public’s eye, then maybe these issues can be resolved and people can be more responsible.
November 1st, 2005 at 5:28 pm
I’m not sure why HTF really needs to be defended. It is a success already. I mean, personally I find it patronizingly offensive, as if the gore is there just to appeal to some base sense of humor in which we find pleasure in the misfortune of others, especially cuddly little bunnies and squirrels. I PVR “Attack of the Show” everyday, and when HTF comes on I regularly skip past it. I watched an episode or two and quickly realized it was a waste of my time.
A post modern Tom and Jerry it may be, but I didn’t even ever enjoy Tom and Jerry. Killing cute, unsuspecting animals in violent ways is a cheap laugh that doesn’t interest me and I can have no respect for, never mind the fact that I won’t let my son watch it.
Oh, and to say that “This chick and people like her are the problem with America” is kinda silly. I’d say that people who fall for HTF’s cheap gags and make it a success are what’s wrong with America…
November 1st, 2005 at 8:09 pm
i think the link between tom and jerry and htf is a bad choice. I think that the early tom and jerry’s were the most hyperviolent cartoons i’ve ever had the pleasure to see.
I love the ones they dont show anymore . Also I have to say any parent letting their 6 year old kid surf the web unsupervised is fortunate the kid just found a kind of funny violent cartoon.
November 30th, 2005 at 5:23 am
Im sick of these right-wing mothers blaming technology (cartoons) for irresponsible parenting: What kind of parent would let their six-year-old online? Of course they are going to find themselves at an innapropriate website! Screw parental controls, just dont let them use the computer! Especially dont write a news article about it when you dont know what you are talking about.
July 11th, 2007 at 5:13 am
Ok you know what, yes I firmly believe that Happy Tree Friends is inappropriate for little kids, but she has officially gone too far. After threatening to “march in a cultural war” against Happy Tree Friends, it further proves the point that I’ve been trying to make for years, that the internet is the new outlet in which irresponsible parents lash out at because of the content that their children have access to. Also, it appears she really didn’t study the cartoon, because it is worth noting that the “psychopathic bear” that she claims ruthlessly slaughters the other characters daily, known by fans of the show as Flippy, rarely is in the show itself. In addition, at the beginning of most of the Happy Tree Friends cartoons, there is a warning label that states that the show is violent in content, and shouldn’t be watched by small children, so guess what, that serves as a warning, and if a decent parent was to catch this, they would simply turn off the computer or close out the website. I think that indeed it is the fault of the camp to introduce the child to Happy Tree Friends, but the majority of the people that watch the show are not four and five year old kids, but rather teenagers who not only know that the cartoon is in fact a cartoon, and have grown up with movies such as Saving Private Ryan, which is much worse then anything covered in Happy Tree Friends. In closing, I would like to point out The Itchy and Scratchy show, which is often compared to Happy Tree Friends by viewers, and is a staple the cult show The Simpson’s, which is, you guessed it, watched by little kids.