James Lileks (the Bleat for 12 Dec.) takes on anti-violent-toy movements and DragonBall Z, all at once.
One of the toys to which the director objected was “Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots,” – the commercials of which were a staple of my childhood. The cry of “You knocked my block off” was as common in the playground as the plaintive lament “You sunk my battleship!” Yet none of us grew up to be mass murderers. John Walker no doubt played with neither the Robots or Battleship, and spent his childhood moaning “You negatively impacted my self-image!” and “You scuttled my Rainbow Warrior!”
Another DANGEROUS toy was a Dragonball Z action figure. Here I agree – not because the show is violent, but because it is stupid . As far as I can tell – and I’ve stumbled across the show many a time, and sat through a few episodes in rapt horror – the show consists entirely of guys levitating in the air grunting as though they’re trying to pass a Rubik’s Cube through their small intestine. Then they fire big noisy bolts of energy at each other while screaming. Cut to the characters on the ground, who are usually saying “huh?” and grunting, with drops of sweat flying off their heads. That’s it.
Read him.