r children play by imitating the characters' leaping, kicking attacks on others" (Salk, 1991, p. 50). A 1988 survey conducted by the National Coalition on Television Violence has shown that such violent actions are commonplace in children's cartoons. The greatest amount of violence at that time was found in the now defunct cartoon Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures. The NCTV study found that there were as many as 60 violent acts per hour (or one per minute) being conveyed on that program ("Wham! Pow! Bam!" 1988, p. 71). Even though the Mighty Mouse cartoon show has been taken off the air, there are still many other such shows for children which continue to exhibit large amounts of violence. For example, the NCTV found that such traditional cartoon programs as Bugs Bunny and Tweety contained as many as 49 violent acts per hour; furthermore, even "cute" shows such as The Gummi Bears and The Smurfs contained as many as 47 and 29 acts per hour respectively, when violence was defined as including acts such as pushing or shoving (p. 71).
Other studies have focused on the amount of TV violence which the average child absorbs during the course of childhood. The results of these studies estimate that a child will see more than 100,000 acts of violence on TV before reaching the age of fifteen. As large as this figure is, it is actually a low estimate because it focuses only on "realistic acts" of violence which are depicted on the screen. Thus, "this tentative count does not include the cartoon characters that the child will see battered, smashed, or self-destructed since starting television viewing in infancy" (Tuchscherer, 1988, p. 51). In fact, cartoon violence is probably more detrimental than realistic depictions of violence. This is because the violence on cartoons is usually fantastic and senseless as well as destructive. The victims in cartoons are rarely shown to be hurt by the aggressive acts of others. Thus, young children...