NO BUT - Amanda Sandford, research manager, Ash
In general, programmes targeted at children should not include smokingand Ofcom's guidelines to broadcasters are quite explicit aboutthis.
Research shows that teenagers are more likely to have positive views onsmoking and be predisposed to smoke if their favourite actors smoke infilms. However, in the case of old material such as Tom & Jerry it isneither desirable nor necessary to edit out references to smoking assuch incidences are rare and unlikely to make children want tosmoke.
YES - Anne Longfield, chief executive, 4Children
As much as I have fond memories of Tom & Jerry, it is a hangover from adifferent time when smoking was acceptable. To include scenes wherecharacters are smoking is out of sync with what is now acceptable and soit should be edited out. I think the whole attitude to smoking andhealth has changed so much since those cartoons were made that we musteither change them, stop showing them or put them on at later times. Ithink some children today are shocked to see smoking in there.
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