Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for September 01, 2013

I can see it does not have much effect on you.

He IS already desensitized!!

“There’s so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?” Dick Cavett

That CRT TV is violent with its jumps.

Make ’em want what you have, then give ’em what they “want.”

Who needs Hollywood Calvin when you can just go to school or around the corner and witness the carnage fast hand , unedited and maybe become a participant.

When I was six I liked watching Star Trek, I Dream Of Jeanie, Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, Get Smart & other comedies. But I despised cop shows.

We’re starting to see some murders by young teens who are bored and just select any available target. Even going so far as to brag about it on Facebook afterwards. I think that’s a pretty clear sign of desensitization.

When I was six the only thing I was allowed to watch were animated films and westerns. Not many murders in the former, tons and tons of murders in the latter.

LOL – Calvin a conservative?

so why more speak Calvin.. but Hobbes nothing to say….

Wait a minute. Calvin reads articles? Who knew?

Delenda est Carthago!

“Shoot-outs, Car wrecks, fist fights and grisly murders??”

Zounds ! Sounds like the menu on NetFlix.

The “young teens” that murder are the severely bullied by other teens. If they had been able to establish a pecking order when younger, maybe it wouldn’t come to that. All mammals do this, this is how we learn. The biggest lesson to learn is that no one wins in a fight, some just hurt less. We should allow them to fight, or at least not make so much of a fight by the under 12 set, at that age, it is hard to do any real damage to others the same age.

pandering to the tastes of immature, lowest common denominator audiences is exactly where bad television comes from

Violence on TV is NRA propaganda

And we do, we do.

That is the one thing I agree with from the side that wants to increase censorship of TV, Movies, Video Games, etc. It does desensitize us all. I do not believe however that media is the one factor that needs to be addressed. There are many more factors that contribute much more significantly, the main one being the lack of good parenting.

I actually had Calvin’s attitude for a while as a kid, tho I didn’t act all that violent.

Calvin’s all heart…

LOL xxx

…and those are just the commercials.

“@Stephen GilbertYou sure do sound like a Nazi…If American TV has a left “bent” I am Julius Cesar.

I see the “police state” didn’t help you with grammar or punctuation. Just saying….

History was made today! a posting by Omnius(see Non Sequitur) which is SHORT but as usual derogatory, and which does NOT mention the tea party!

Another opportunity to thank our life leaders!

If parents today were like our parents, there wouldn’t need to be a police state at school. Most of today’s parents seem to believe their kids can do no wrong and call the lawyers when the kid is reprimanded. I know of several teachers who have quit because they can’t control the kids because the kids have no fear of punishment.

Strips like this one are pretty representative of what I don’t like about roughly the second half of Calvin and Hobbes’ run. Even though I completely agree with the sentiment expressed here (and it’s only gotten much worse in the twenty years hence), this is one of those anvilicious strips where Calvin becomes little more than a reverse-mouthpiece for Watterson’s criticisms of society. That’s a bad trap to fall into, and unfortunately in my opinion the second five years of the strip often did fall into it. Earlier, Calvin had been much more believable as a little kid, and the societal jabs felt more relaxed and less heavy-handed. I think that changed after the sabbatical, and the subtlety was kind of gone. I realize I’m probably in the minority opinion here, but I’ve felt this way pretty much since I was a kid, even if I lacked the vocabulary to quite express it then.

I remember that episode. In response to Marge’s complaint,Itchy and Scratchy’s m.o. was changed from violent schtick to sharing and caring. Result: kids were so bored watching the show,they actually turned off the TV and went outside to play,did homework and interacted with their parents! Meanwhile,the network’s ratings were tanking,and Krusty was on the verge of losing his job (I think),so they restored Itchy and Scratchy to their old selves,and the kids went back to watching ’em!

I guess this was a little to early for his strip to comment on the extreme violence in some video games. Remember, the Newtown shooter was obsessed with a very violent video game, and his idiotic mother actually put real guns in his hands.

we are all at fault.

TV … the gift that just keeps on giving.

Guns are not the problem… have you never read the history of the Roman Empire? or the Greeks? Americans got nothing on them for sheer brutality.

Reminds me of the guy who said, “There’s no such thing as porn addiction. I look at it every day for hours, and I’m not addicted yet.”