Parents, rest easy

You can now blissfully abandon Baby Snookums to the care of the television set without any fear that his mind will be irretrievably corrupted by seeing Tom the Cat light up a cigarette. Tom and Jerry are to be censored by the current rightsholder, Turner Broadcasting, in the same way that blues musician Robert Johnson's cigarette was airbrushed out of existence in the Post Office's commemorative stamp.

This way, the positive behavioral messages of bashing small rodents over the head and tricking those larger than yourself into making fools of themselves can be transmitted without any harmful exposure to the sight of Evil Cigarettes. (Just as, presumably, the buyers of Robert Johnson stamps can absorb all kinds of healthy lifestyle messages from his de-tobbaconized portrait.)

Go on now, enjoy watching your oral sex on Desperate Housewives, your glamorous sexpots, your admirably, superhumanly clever serial torture-murderers on the detective show of your choice. Enjoy your talkshows about incest and casual sex. Go on and watch people be blown to smithereens on prime time.

The Children Are Safe from the scourge of cartoon cigarettes.