Posted by: @elder

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Posted by: @thenerdwithasuit

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In fact, some research I made suggested that a reason for the after episode PSA's and the Christmas Special wasn't just so that Mattel could say the shows did teach kids some morals so they weren't just toy commercials, but they were also done to appease puritans who thought the shows were Satanic in some way.

I had to pause for a moment there gobsmacked over this little bit.  Regardless of Lou being Jewish Christmas specials were good work for Filmation and popular for their time. Lou scored an Emmy nomination for one of them. You can't toss a grenade like this mate without providing some real data connecting motivation with preventing a potential television equivalent to the Salem Witch Trials.

I knew He-Man and She-Ra was the work of the devil and the Christmas Special was made to cover its tracks! I knew it!

Satanic Panic* was more heavily connected with D&D, but part of the deal with deregulation of advertising to kids that Reagan spearheaded was shows having some educational content, and the PSAs tied into that even if not strictly mandated. Parental objections were more to do with violence and bad role models, and the heroes not actually being allowed to use those swords, guns, ninja weapons etc to do anything much. See also the Comics Code which was still having aftereffects on entertainment - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority

But I'm sure there was some of that in the way there still is with Harry Potter etc in religious enclaves in the US and elsewhere. Book banning is still a favoured sport, etc -- https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/22/democracy-book-bans-us-public-schools-rise

* e.g. https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/dungeons-and-dragons-5e/feature/dnd-satanic-panic and the whole constructed (and very occasionally real) history of ritual killings, Chick tracts, etc. Remember this was an era in which Dennis Wheatley was also a household name.

@denyer

Dungeons & Dragons, Heavy Metal music, Drugs, Music Television, Pornography were all targets as potential gateways into satanic worship. They were considered favourite tools of the devil and each arguably thrived because of it.

Parents were concerned about violence on television. I don't recall any mainstream cartoons mass protested as gateways to Satanism nor act as catalyst for any animation house to make Christmas programming 2 years after a shows premiere to counter it. Christmas specials were just an extremely popular event of that time. There were bigger fish to fry. 

True, they did get a lot of publicity that couldn't have been bought, and I'm guessing (can't recall if it's come up in the many documentaries) that MOTU leaning into monster characters had an element of appealing to that kind of taboo.

Maybe not mass protest but there was some media representation of He-Man/She-Ra as ebil...

https://restlesspilgrim.net/blog/2012/08/10/he-man-servant-of-satan/

Also:

@denyer

I saw that interview before. It's very humorous. I remember those religious groups concerned about Star Wars and the occult too. Your mentioning of Harry Potter is important too as its accused this very day of promoting witchcraft to the youth.

Circling back to Christmas Specials, Christianity generally found the art of the Christmas Special the work of Satan because it distorted the true meaning of Christmas. Christmas is about the birth of Jesus Christ not Reindeer and Elves. Santa Claus was deemed a false idol.

Mmm. I suppose that's the price of appropriating other religions' winter festivals and everyone else's need to do something to cheer themselves up when it's cold and dark, Coca-Cola and Hallmark will do the same right back.

Being in the UK where Christianity tends at most to be a births/deaths/weddings/Xmas flavour to secular traditions, the reaction to Potter seems a bit incredible. But skip back a few decades and from what I remember and talking to older relatives, there really were concerns that what e.g. Wheatley was writing had some basis in fact.

@denyer Fortunately the younger generations were not accepting of such nonsense. One day however humanity may miss the moral compass religion brings if it all goes with the wind.

@adam_prince-of-eternia 

Those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it.

It's interesting (and quite cool and reassuring, in a people-don't-really-change way) how the same observations crop up in most of recorded history, down to the Romans and Greeks saying things about kids that wouldn't be out of place in modern broadsheets.

People manage to commit atrocities or be nice to each other with or without thinking there's an omnipotent personality watching them. We're hardwired for pattern recognition, and where there aren't we make them. Always been a fan of Julian of Norwich myself, because anyone who has that much faith in humanity when they're surrounded by death and plague and their own church would cheerfully execute them is very impressive.

And there are kernels of truth in whipped up public hysteria over concern that people will read books or listen to things and take them literally, and victimise or kill people, whether it's metal lyrics or MTG source books or religious texts / political tracts that dehumanise others. Happens all the time with the drip-drip of poison into news and popular culture of describing immigrants as vermin or insects, etc.

But SP in particular did have a chilling effect on what was published. If you take the Forgotten Reams, for example, one of the settings adopted by TSR (originally created by Ed Greenwood) the concept of the realms having portals to other dimensions including the real world got cut from officially published material due to the fear that kids and adults with a tenuous grip on sanity would go looking for them.

Real world links are in fantasy-oriented 80s series such as MOTU (Marlena) and Thundercats (Third Earth is literally Earth and Mumm-Ra in some material originated in ancient Egypt) but mostly in the background unless modern-day settings with added anthropomorphic animals etc. It's certainly arguable that writers had to be more careful with things like the D&D cartoon or magic in general because of more direct links.

Posted by: @denyer

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Being in the UK where Christianity tends at most to be a births/deaths/weddings/Xmas flavour to secular traditions, the reaction to Potter seems a bit incredible.

And yet the UK's leading high street toy shop chain refuses to stock Harry Potter items because of this.

Some of these "Satanic Panic People" really need to get a life.  

Posted by: @denyer

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It's interesting (and quite cool and reassuring, in a people-don't-really-change way) how the same observations crop up in most of recorded history, down to the Romans and Greeks saying things about kids that wouldn't be out of place in modern broadsheets.

People manage to commit atrocities or be nice to each other with or without thinking there's an omnipotent personality watching them. We're hardwired for pattern recognition, and where there aren't we make them. Always been a fan of Julian of Norwich myself, because anyone who has that much faith in humanity when they're surrounded by death and plague and their own church would cheerfully execute them is very impressive.

And there are kernels of truth in whipped up public hysteria over concern that people will read books or listen to things and take them literally, and victimise or kill people, whether it's metal lyrics or MTG source books or religious texts / political tracts that dehumanise others. Happens all the time with the drip-drip of poison into news and popular culture of describing immigrants as vermin or insects, etc.

But SP in particular did have a chilling effect on what was published. If you take the Forgotten Reams, for example, one of the settings adopted by TSR (originally created by Ed Greenwood) the concept of the realms having portals to other dimensions including the real world got cut from officially published material due to the fear that kids and adults with a tenuous grip on sanity would go looking for them.

Real world links are in fantasy-oriented 80s series such as MOTU (Marlena) and Thundercats (Third Earth is literally Earth and Mumm-Ra in some material originated in ancient Egypt) but mostly in the background unless modern-day settings with added anthropomorphic animals etc. It's certainly arguable that writers had to be more careful with things like the D&D cartoon or magic in general because of more direct links.

I would counter it has not been field tested yet for better or for worse. Modern civilization exists in a world ingrained with religious upbringing. This average 40 year old community is old enough to know that as children our society was surrounded and soaked in it, secular home or not. Now ponder the society of our 80 year olds who were 40 in the 1980s. They were children that were born into homes without a television. 

It's easy to fall into our current existence feeling that the past 40, 80, 120 years ago is some ancient history far removed but if we look back at a few generations, the roots of our civilized society, parents and grandparents, it's astonishing to learn how those Ten Commandments were baked into everything that surround us.

War and evil will exist for as long as humanity is human but it's generations of moral coding that if removed may tip the scales of someone helping when you're in need versus someone giggling recording your distress with a phone. Or perhaps it will surprise us and be a Shangri-la. It's all untested.

Posted by: @timrollpickering

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Posted by: @denyer

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Being in the UK where Christianity tends at most to be a births/deaths/weddings/Xmas flavour to secular traditions, the reaction to Potter seems a bit incredible.

And yet the UK's leading high street toy shop chain refuses to stock Harry Potter items because of this.

 

It's maddening.

I don't think there was a satanic panic over MOTU in the 80s.  I don't think just a few documented attacks on MOTU constitutes that.  And out of those, most had to do with MOTU basically being a half hour toy commercial for kids, not the satanic thing.  It was Ronald Reagan, a conservative, that opened the flood gates for these toy commercial cartoons.   My mom was pretty religious and she had no issues with me watching MOTU.   It was D&D that had the bad stigma.

Posted by: @elder

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New discussion split from thread:

https://foreternia.com/community/series-movies-new-2004-present/does-satpop-fans-exist-in-their-own-community

Posted by: @thenerdwithasuit

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In fact, some research I made suggested that a reason for the after episode PSA's and the Christmas Special wasn't just so that Mattel could say the shows did teach kids some morals so they weren't just toy commercials, but they were also done to appease puritans who thought the shows were Satanic in some way.

I had to pause for a moment there gobsmacked over this little bit.  Regardless of Lou being Jewish Christmas specials were good work for Filmation and popular for their time. Lou scored an Emmy nomination for one of them. You can't toss a grenade like this mate without providing some real data connecting motivation with preventing a potential television equivalent to the Salem Witch Trials.

He received an Emmy nomination for The Fat Albert Christmas Special.

I love the Harry Potter books and movies, especially Helena Bonham Carter as the delightfully bonkers Bellatrix Lestrange. 😀 

I haven't read or seen the Fantastic Beasts books or movies yet. 😀 

Posted by: @timrollpickering

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And yet the UK's leading high street toy shop chain refuses to stock Harry Potter items because of this. 

Took me a while to work out you meant the Entertainer. Been a while since those news stories and they stock magic-based stuff like MOTU and alien war robot stuff like TFs, apart from Smyths being more successful around here and more toys selling through supermarkets/Argos if not Amazon. It also smacks of Gary either PR hunting or just being wildly inconsistent, since IIRC the CEO has said similar about Trolls in the past and TFs is an order of magnitude more violent in backstory than Pokemon (also apparently not stocked).

Posted by: @elder

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it's generations of moral coding that if removed may tip the scales of someone helping when you're in need versus someone giggling recording your distress with a phone. Or perhaps it will surprise us and be a Shangri-la. It's all untested.

I think there's two relatively separate issues there, given that generations of religious moral coding (by a variety of religions) have seen e.g. huge abuse of women and children too. For every anecdote about things being better a while ago there's looting in the Blitz, drunken beatings and still going to church on Sunday. Kids today drink less, are often very politically aware, are generally more accepting of difference amongst their peers, etc. They'll probably do fine if they're left any resources to work with, it's our generations dying off that'll give them more scope to progress. I'm fairly optimistic.

Certainly environments like Xitter aiming to monetise, gamify and amplify reactions aren't healthy. Nor is parents handing out unrestricted internet access, but platforms have been and are profiting from extremism, that much is fairly clear from the degrees of separation between an unauthenticated YouTube front page and some very dark content.

Bringing things back around to 70s/80s media, we got critical thinking and morality instilled into us by some of it too, and not just with PSAs: https://comicsalliance.com/ask-chris-81-scooby-doo-and-secular-humanism/

I remember anything with magic in it (which MOTU had) invited at least a little bit of scrutiny back in the day.  My mom had one of those books (I remember the cover had a bunch of toys that included He-Man and Skeletor, and a magic trail lead from Skeletor's staff to form an ominous demon behind the toybox), and she was a little concerned about magic influence and such, but both my parents watched my cartoons with me and ultimately didn't forbid much.  I think mom was more annoyed that I never picked my figures off the floor!  (Sorry, Mom!)