We all grew up on Looney Toons, Tom & Jerry, Saturday morning cartoons – and old amusement park owners saying that they would have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!
And if you were to sit down and watch those classic cartoons today – you’d see a rash of violence bestowed upon the characters to each other: faces blown off, coyotes plummeting to their deaths, anvils falling from the sky.
Hunters on a mission to kill. Coyotes on a mission to kill. Yellow parakeets on a mission to kill. Giant roosters on a mission to torture a dog.
Yes, the violence in all these cartoons and animated features is incredible.
And that’s why a TEAM OF SCIENTISTS DECIDED TO ANALYZE CARTOON DEATHS and report on it for us:
- Cartoons had more on-screen deaths than live-action adult films
- 2/3 of children’s animated filnms contain an on-screen death of a major character compared with just 50% of the adult films used for a comparison
- The most common types of cartoon deaths were “falls” and “animal attacks”. Keep in mind that there are three popular children’s films that feature a gunshot death of a major character: Bambi, Peter Pan, Pocahontas)
- Deaths occur in children’s films much earlier in the plotline vs adult movies. The example given is Nemo’s mother dying just four minutes into FINDING NEMO, and Tarzan’s parents being killed – also at the four minute mark.
- The most common character to die first in an animated film are parents, enemies, and children. Parents rarely die in adult films when compared to a parent mortality rate in animated productions
And if you really think about it as you’re watching – PINOCCHIO LITERALLY DIES immediately before the closing credits. How happy is that film, really?
Walt Disney famously said, “for every laugh, a tear must fall”. But did he really need to be that dramatic with his tear-inducing choices?