New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | February 17, 2006

Culture warriors never tire of complaining about the increase of sex and violence on TV, but Nick Gillespie and Tim Cavanaugh note that there's more of everything else as well, including wholesome fare suitable for even the teeniest, tiniest babies.

Comments

Gimme Back My Dog|2.17.06 @ 3:30PM|#

It took two of you to write this article?

|2.17.06 @ 3:39PM|#

????

|2.17.06 @ 3:44PM|#

Also, haven't we seen this article before? This reads like a synopsis of something posted a couple of months ago, but with added illustrations.

|2.17.06 @ 3:46PM|#

Also, haven't we seen this article before? This reads like a synopsis of something posted a couple of months ago, but with added illustrations.

Must be a slow news day.

That, or Reason just extended its readership to the kindergartener demographic.

|2.17.06 @ 3:47PM|#

Tough crowd.

|2.17.06 @ 4:15PM|#

Sex on the TV I don't mind.
Sex with the TV, now that's just sick

Yogi|2.17.06 @ 4:38PM|#

Don't knock until you've tried it.

|2.17.06 @ 4:40PM|#

Drumsareus,
You must have one of this big old console TVs.
I can't imagine anyone having sex on my TV without falling off.

|2.17.06 @ 4:44PM|#

perhaps this sex on television is causing more teens to have play more pelvic pinnochle, which in turn causes more kids with unmarried parents who need to put there kids in front of the tv causing demand for these channels

Larry A|2.17.06 @ 5:39PM|#

You better believe there's more sex on TV. Last night's 10 PM Eyewitness News featured a cop caught sexually assaulting a detainee, other cops running paedophile stings on MySpace.com, a high school teacher caught playing with a student, a crackdown on hookers along main thoroughfares that's driving them into residential areas, and a new celebrity baby at the local zoo.

Spring is busting out all over. Kids haven't been exposed to this much sex since they grew up in one-room hovels and worked on the farm.

|2.17.06 @ 5:50PM|#

To me, the scariest part of this isn't the sex - it's that Noggin mascot. Kids would be better off watching the Playboy channel then getting warped looking at that thing.

Lazlo|2.17.06 @ 5:53PM|#

That's not spring bustin' out, just the February sweeps. TV viewership in many small- and medium-sized markets is only measured in depth four times a year, and this is one of them. Your local news crews will be spewing a non-stop firehose of sex and violence through the 28th.

|2.17.06 @ 9:21PM|#

I'd say three or four hours straight of watching TV shows like The Waltons or Little House on the Prairie would be enough to make any sane person give up the quest for wholesome TV programming.

|2.18.06 @ 1:40AM|#

What? No smug, condescending lectures on the difference between being a "libertarian" and a "libertine?" The local conserva-trolls have fallen asleep, or there's a new anti-war thread to distract them.

Sex on TV may be multiplying like rabbits, but so are channels that deliver child-appropriate fare. In the last few years, Playhouse Disney, PBS Kids, Sprout, Toon Disney, and other channels have come on line, joining not only Noggin but Nickelodeon and more.

OK, for the last time: Vicky Rideout and her equally tight-assed coherts aren't so much concerned about toddlers and prepubscents witnessing sex in the media--most kids under 11 wouldn't know what sex is if they saw it. As always, The Children" is just a smoke screen.

The Christards know damn well that when it comes to sheilding their bratlings from reality, there's plenty of mindless, "family-friendly," pablum to go around. It's the thought that some adult out there is enjoying some quality erotic entertainment that sends their Bibles a thumpin'.


The report led folks such as Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)...

What's happened to the Democrats? Aren't they supposed to be the "liberal" party now dominated by those former hippies and "moral relativists" who want to foist sex ed and porn on us? Weren't they the party that defended government funding for Robert Maplethorpe pics and oppose the flag burning amendement? Now we've got every Dem from Hillary to Obama clamouring to out-censor the Morality Mongers in the GOP?

Makes the decision on who to vote for next election all the easier: I'm staying home.

|2.18.06 @ 10:45AM|#

Is it me, or does almost every new kids' cartoon character look and act like he/she has the IQ of a spoiled cabbage?

|2.19.06 @ 9:34AM|#

So, Obama, the Great White Liberal Black Hope, has finally arrived and accepted his DNC-Statist Crown of Thorns to inform all the rest of us pagans how to raise our kids and make the appropriate (i.e. HIS) choices.

Despite the free, uncritical ride Mr. Minority Harvard Law School Grad gets form the MSM, it's all downhill from here. I guess I'll be renouncing my US citizenship when it's Clinton-Obama v. McCain-Guiliani in '08.

Could someone at the University of Chicago Economics department (which he represents as a senator) give this moron a clue and send him a copy of ANY book by Milton Friedman?

|2.20.06 @ 4:27PM|#

"Is it me, or does almost every new kids' cartoon character look and act like he/she has the IQ of a spoiled cabbage?"

Yeah, that's the real problem... it's not a lack of children's programming, it's a lack of intelligent children's programming, as well as programming that children and parents can watch together without the latters growing bored to tears...