Looney Toons and Five Year Olds

Those classic cartoons are great - funny, good music, Scooby Doo has good stories to follow, etc. I'd prefer my kids to what those over most of the awful drivel that's on Disney and Nick - once you get past the pre-school level on those networks, most of the content is terrible.

Let her watch them, and join her and enjoy some laughs!

My oldest (7 yo) has enjoyed Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes for a couple of years. Kids have an amazing sense of make believe.
However, do you know what spawned off all the questions? Pete smoking a cigar on an old episode of Mickey Mouse. My son didn't know what it was and I had to go into detail about smoking and how it's bad for you. A good lesson that came up in context, so I wasn't upset. But it's more of the every day, relevant life threats that you have to keep an eye on in old cartoons.

Things I have never done despite my steady diet of Looney Toons:

* ordered anything from the Acme catalog
* put on skates, tied a rocket to my back, and rocketed down the street
* lit a stick of dynamite and had it snuff out before blowing up my target, gone to check on it, and had it detonate in my hand
* gone to a high cliff and tried to drop an anvil on my desired dinner
* fired off pistols with both hands while hopping around, yelling, "What in tarnation?!"

I'd be much more worried if they still showed the Lil Abner, Sambo, and minstrel depictions that used to pass for family entertainment and is not considered fit for today's audiences.

I'll take Scooby Doo and Looney Tunes over Disney Channel any day!

A couple summers ago on a road trip, the kids (2 and 5 at the time) had burned through all their movies already so I snagged a "Tom and Jerry" DVD from the $5 bin at a target near one of our stops. As they were watching it in the backseat, I have never heard mor "LOLing" for a movie. These two were cackling out loud, it must have been the most hilarious thing they had seen in a long time. It is still one of their favorites.

I swear we don't give kids enough credit. They know the difference between cartoons and real life.

Now, realistic looking combat/violence oriented video games, I wonder about. Especially since there is the whole interactive aspect to it... As technology and concepts in video games have advanced greatly in the last 20 years... And INCREASED in their violence, and realism as compared to caroton programming, I can"t help but think about the rise in school shootings for this generation compared to the Looney Tunes one.

LOL yep I grew up watching those! I especially loved Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam. I always felt sorry for Wiley E. Coyote though. I secretly wanted to catch and roast that roadrunner myself :-(
I HATED Tom & Jerry, I just thought it was repetitive and dumb.
Same with Scooby Doo, too dumb and predictable for me even as a little kid!
I let my kids watch these cartoons but they never really liked them so it wasn't an issue. Sure they were violent, but pratfalls and injuries are at the heart of base comedy. Just watch any episode of America's Funniest Home Videos, usually someone is getting hurt.
What bothered me more as an adult was how racist and sexist they were, my word! The slick Mexican mouse, the sex crazed French skunk, the spinster chicken trying to trap the rooster? But still, it was a sign of the times. I certainly didn't grow up internalizing these thoughts. On the contrary I remember recognizing some of those stereotypes at a very early age.
So don't overthink it, if she likes them, great, if not there are literally thousands of other options for kids these days.

Another aspect that is positive about the old school cartoons are that they are completely gender neutral. My son really likes Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (He's almost 3) and that is pretty much the only things he gets to watch. During commercials for other Disney channel shows, I've been dismayed to see all the clearly "girl" or "boy" shows. Shows with lots of pink and purple and primarily female characters like Doc McStuffins and Sofia the First or the boy equivalent of Jake the Pirate. Mickey for the most part should be gender neutral, but still has specials that are geared towards one sex vs the other. My husband and I BOTH enjoyed Looney Toons as kids, and Scooby Doo has both male and female lead characters. Why let them watch things that just reinforce stereotypes? Ultimately, pick what you want to allow but put a bigger emphasis on how much she's allowed to watch a day of whatever it is.

This question was argued to death about the same cartoon characters, but in the 1970s by the parents of my generation. None of it made us turn violent because of the Road Runner or Tom and Jerry. It's the Keystone Cops and The Three Stooges in cartoon form.
On the other hand, I never let my daughter watch cartoons that denigrated her as a female. No Tinkerbell, no helpless princesses getting saved by men. I actually like the Barbie movies because SHE was always the hero.

You know, this is an interesting question.

I introduced some classic cartoons a while ago, some vintage Felix the Cat. Kiddo thought it was really creepy-- it had some great animation, flowers and trees that moved--- but he didn't like it. This was when he was five. He liked Felix as a piece of art and I have a nice picture in my kitchen of that from him.

When our boy was six, we let him watch Scooby Doo. We've had mixed results with this. We learned-- through watching with him and listening in-- that the earlier Scooby Doo's are the better ones. The stories don't go into boy/girl dating stuff the way the more recent ones do. All this said, Kiddo did have some nightmares and was extra clingy around this time, so we decided to take a break on Scooby for now.

My son's favorite cartoon by far is the Ninjago series. He loves it in that deep way he has loved dinosaurs and vacuums and pumps... he wants to know everything about it. He was also introduced to SpongeBob, who makes me cringe and can drive me from the room.

He's still not interested so much in Looney Tunes, but did say he'd recently seen a Bugs Bunny cartoon on a trip with his dad and thought it was funny. I think there needs to be some silly in every kid's life, and those cartoons are really silly. My son watches Ninjago and is actually a very mild kid as far as that sort of play. I figure that I watch tv for pleasure, and he does get a fair amount of more 'educational' media exposure as well-- he should be able to have some say in how he spends his limit of media time. He's almost seven and has been showing real responsibility in turning the tv off when his shows are over. It's been nice to see... they do grow into it. :)

Queen of the Castle: Thanks for the laugh! I haven't ordered anything from the acme catalog either....

We have always loved Loony Toons and always will.
Bugs Bunny and so many of the characters that Mel Blanc did were pure vaudeville.
The Road Runner and Wile E Coyote were slapstick - I always liked them better than the Three Stooges.
And Scooby Doo I loved gowing up and enjoyed watching all over again when our son became a major Scooby fan.
We got everything on DVD and watch it that way.
We don't watch much live tv (and we don't miss the commercials at all).

If it was good enough for me I am sure it will be fine for my kids as well. Kids are smarter then we give them credit for, they understand the difference between a cartoon and real life.

I sure do. I much rather prefer those to some of the new ones.
My kids see the violence as the over-the-top and completely unreal thing that it is. They've never once tried to do anything they see in those old Loony Toons or Tom & Jerry cartoons. But the attitudes, intentionally being gross and endless fart, poop and burp jokes of today's cartoons. Oh I can absolutely see which ones they've been watching and try to copy. I'd rather avoid the annoying sassy mouth personally because that's all they try to copy.

I let my kids watch all the "classic" cartoons that I grew up watching. Yes, they're pretty violent, but it's also a completely fake violence.

5 may be a little young for those types of cartoons, but I remember watching those exact same cartoons as a kid... I probably did not watch them until I was a little older, maybe 7 or 8 -- and by then I knew that the violence wasn't real and would not be allowed in reality. In other words, I didn't become a raging lunatic with sledgehammers, guns and dynamite just because I watched a couple hours of cartoon violence on TV on Saturday mornings! Again, I would hold off until she's at an age where she can easily see that cartoon characters blowing each other up is just silly TV stuff.

I grew up on Looney Tunes in all their "violent" glory. I also knew that cartoon violence wasn't real and that if an anvil fell on someone's head, they wouldn't be able to peel themselves off the sidewalk and reinflate their bodies by blowing on their thumbs.
I didn't grow up to be a psychpoath.

Watch with her and point out how certain parts or situations would be perceived in today's world.

Yes to Looney Toons. The modern Looney Toons are horrible. Don't bother.

New Scooby Doo can be a bit creepy. I prefer the old Scooby Doo to the new episodes/movies.

I'd avoid SpongeBob, Disney, Nick toons. Most are junk. If you let your kids watch Nick/Disney channels, they'll get sucked into other worse shows.

You might want to check into the Veggie Tales series. Cute and nice Bible lessons.

It's all brain candy. The violence doesn't bother me as much as just the pure waste of time. Much more value in books, crafts, art, music, games, and educational shows.

I didn't watch those cartoons until I was an older child, maybe double digits. Even then, it wasn't at home. I never developed any affinity for these cartoons, so I have no interest in putting them on the television for mine. I'm not sure how I would handle it if he were to see them somewhere and want to watch at home, except to say no.