Whether it's alleged homosexual agendas in Shrek 2 and Teletubbies, or those foul-mouthed kids in South Park, right-wingers do love to hate them toons.

(This is Part 2 of a series on Conservatives vs. Toons. You can check out Part 1 here)

Can cartoons be a threat to moral values? For some people, yes. Whether it's alleged homosexual agendas in Teletubbies or Shrek 2, racial stereotypes in Warner Bros or Disney shorts, or the graphic scenes in current adult-oriented fare such as The Simpsons or South Park, there's always been something to get right-wing authoritarians in a lather.

Unlike other media, animation has passed through the Religious/Culture Wars relatively unscathed. This is because most early animated shorts, from studios such as Warner Bros, MGM and Walter Lantz, were originally intended for an adult, theatre-going audience. These shorts played as a warm-up to a full-length theatrical film, often from the same studio. Most people considered adults able to handle the animated violence in cartoon shorts.

Any serious (and understandable) objections were against pieces like Looney Tunes' "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs" or Disney's partly-animated Song of the South, which painted an unflattering portrait of minorities. Not surprisingly, these films offended many people, and public pressure (eventually) convinced broadcasters to remove them from the air.

Sometimes, when broadcasters pre-emptively censor themselves, the attempt can backfire. In 1999, Time-Warner executives decided that classic Looney Tunes shorts featuring Speedy Gonzales presented Latin Americans in a negative light, and took them all off the air. After a storm of protests from Latin Americans themselves, who viewed "the fastest mouse in all Mexico" as a cultural hero, a red-faced Cartoon Network returned Speedy to the air in 2002.

It was only when broadcasters placed the cartoons on daytime television in the 1950's (under the mistaken assumption that cartoon = kids' programming) that many people objected to the occasionally racy content in those classic shorts. Around this time, Hanna-Barbera began to develop its rise to virtual monopoly on kid-friendly animation, and theatrical animated shorts went into decline.

In 1954, the first major broadside against animation came against comic books. Dr. Frederic Wertham wrote his bestselling Seduction of the Innocent, a book about how comic books (especially E.C.'s horror titles) were corrupting the nation's youth. In the book, Wertham used many unsubstantiated anecdotes (including one about a "beautiful" boy who made himself a magic cloak and jumped off a cliff, believing he could fly) to show how comics created a "disassociation from reality" and corrupted juvenile minds. Wertham also objected to the fact that many horror comic books showed ads for knives and air guns next to their gruesome stories.

In an interesting precursor to future animation accusations, Wertham also railed against DC's Batman and Wonder Woman titles, claiming that Batman and Robin were in a homosexual relationship and that Wonder Woman was a bondage-obsessed lesbian.

Seduction of the Innocent, and Wertham's prior standing as a criminal psychiatrist (especially during the notorious Albert Fish murder trial), ensured that he was a star witness in Senator Estes Kefauver's Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1955. The Subcommittee, in a decision Wertham criticized as not going far enough, recommended that the comic book industry voluntarily police its content. The industry took the hint, giving rise to the Comics Code Authority which is still in use today, albeit in altered form.

In later years, Wertham moderated many of his anti-comics views. In his last book, 1974's The World of Fanzines, he presented a positive assessment of comic book collecting and promoted fanzines as "a constructive and healthy exercise of creative drives." However, many comics and animation fans missed this change of heart, and most still despise Dr. Frederic Wertham.

In the 1960's, 70's and 80's, animation went into decline. Cartooning was mostly a kids' medium and Hanna-Barbera dominated the industry with cheaply-produced fare. There were the occasional attempts to make adult animation (Ralph Bakshi's X-rated Fritz the Cat the most successful) but few followed Bakshi's lead. The only bright spot was from the occasional mid-1960's special, like Charles M. Schultz's A Charlie Brown Christmas or Chuck Jones' How the Grinch Stole Christmas. None of these caught censors' ire, based as they were on beloved children's comic strips and books.

The next two decades were hell for animation lovers as TV shows rapidly declined in quality, becoming little more than half-hour toy commercials. Walt Disney's death in 1966 heralded a decline in their animated movies, resulting in the studio becoming more moribund and anti-creative. There was the occasional bright spot (former Disney animator Don Bluth's 1982 film The Secret of NIMH), but the only objection anyone had to animation of this period was that it was lousy.

It was only at the close of the 1980's, when Disney unleashed the one-two punch of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and The Little Mermaid, that animation rose out of its 2-decade-long doldrums. And with that rise in quality, animation once again got into conservative authoritarian gunsights.

In 1989, The Simpsons presented a PG-rated animated series that was aimed at both kids and adults, and immedately became a hit. On the other hand, conservatives complained that Bart Simpson was a poor role model for children, while Iraqi propaganda claimed he was seducing U.S. soldier's wives during the first Gulf War. Several schools banned Simpsons garb like the t-shirt featuring Bart saying "Underachiever ('And proud of it, Man!')". However, most took The Simpsons in the spirit in which it was offered, making it the longest-running American animated series of all time.

However, the controversy over The Simpsons was nothing next to the firestorm that erupted over South Park. Trey Parker and Matt Stone's purposefully crude CG animation and even cruder storylines were definitely aimed at adults (especially the lucrative 18-34 male audience). The show's immediate success spawned other adult-cartoon series such as Duckman and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. These shows aired on specialty cable channels, on late-night slots, where kids technically weren't able to watch them. They made no secret of their adult-only intent: as South Park said in their now-classic disclaimer: "This show contains coarse language and due to its content it should not be watched by anyone."

However, a fierce intelligence has helped South Park stand out from the adult-animation crowd. Certainly the show has deliberately aimed to shock its audience, with its foul-mouthed schoolchildren, graphic violence, gay dogs, perverted teachers, and the myriad ways in which Kenny gets killed. It also hasn't helped that the show has potrayed Satan as an occasionally sympathetic character, as well as mocking Catholicism ("Bloody Mary," "Red Hot Catholic Love"), Mormonism ("All About Mormons"), Scientology ("Trapped in the Closet"), Islam ("Cartoon Wars Part I and II") and even atheism ("Go God Go," "Red Hot Catholic Love"). But the show has also showed a suprisingly acute view of world events, and some surprisingly Centre-Right viewpoints.

Many conservative libertarians have actually praised South Park for satirizing self-aggrandizing liberals like Al Gore, Michael Moore and half of Hollywood's acting elite. Left-wing tentpoles such as hybrid vehicles, smoking laws and the Amazon Rainforest have also come under South Park's fire. As Stone once said in an oft-printed quote: "I hate conservatives, but I really f***ing hate liberals."

That attitude has gained South Park so many devotees among younger conservatives that commentator Andrew Sullivan even coined the term "South Park Republican" to identify right-wing fans of the show. Matt Stone holds membership in the Republican Party, while Trey Parker is a registered Libertarian.

That neo-con respect has also touched Parker and Stone's other projects. The Western Standard, the bible of Canada's far-right movement, called Parker and Stone's 2004 movie Team America: World Police"the most intelligent satire you will never see this year," saying there was a brilliant statement about America's War on Terror lurking under all that toilet humour.

South Park, now in its 10th season, is showing no signs of slowing down: such controversial episodes as the Emmy-nominated "Trapped in the Closet" have given the show its best ratings in 4 years.

However, so many children started following the adventures of Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny, that several conservative authoritarian organizations decided that, even though South Park was specifically intended for an adult audience, its appeal among kids was too great to ignore. Even though South Park was not the first adult-oriented animated series on late-night cable TV(Beavis and Butthead and Ren and Stimpy got there first), it was the first to have such an impact on children. Schools banned kids from wearing South Park merchandise and many groups denounced the show as contributing to juvenile delinquency. In its turn, Comedy Central said it never ran the show during daylight hours (only late at night) and that it has a "TV-MA" rating, which means for Mature Audiences only.

However, more mainstream (and kid-friendly) animated shows have also taken heat from conservatives. In 1999, Rev. Jerry Falwell decided that Tinky Winky from the British kids' series Teletubbies was a homosexual character because he "is purple -- the gay-pride color; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle -- the gay pride symbol." The character often plays with a purse-like bag, which was also a red flag for family-values types. This led to a much-mocked outcry against the show

In 2004, the Traditional Values Coalition warned of "a homosexual agenda" in DreamWorks' animated blockbuster Shrek 2. In a hysterically-worded statement, the TVC called out the Ugly Stepsister, who tends bar at The Poison Apple, and later makes a grab for Prince Charming. The statement says that the character's breasts and low voice (provided by CNN host Larry King) mark her as "obviously a she-male." Pinocchio's denials that he is wearing women's underwear, and the gender-confused wolf in grandmother's clothing, also were pointed out by the TVC as further evidence of Shrek 2 trying to advance the homosexual cause.

Someone in the TVC never noticed that cross-dressing is a long-time comedy staple, whether Bugs Bunny's antics in Looney Tunes cartoons, Milton Berle's skits, Monty Python's Flying Circus or in Stephen Sondheim's classic play A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

It gets better. In 2005, Alan Sears and Dr. James Dobson of the Alliance Defence Fund accused Spongebob Squarepants several times of promoting the gay lifestyle. Such claims haven't dented the show's popularity or hurt its lucrative merchandising sales. However, the current fixation on depraved toons focuses on animation aimed at adults, the latest victim being Comedy Central's Drawn Together.

The conservative lobby group Parents Television Council recently announced that it will assemble a coalition of minority groups to protest racist jokes and images in Drawn Together, which is an animated spoof of reality show The Surreal Life, featuring formerly famous toon celebrities interacting with each other. The PTC alleges that there was an offensive sequence about black women lactating chocolate milk. Also, a character utters a racist joke: “Why do Jews have big noses? Is it because air is free?” (By the way, the show's creators, Dave Jeser and Matt Silverstein, are Jewish).

Drawn Together is an easy target for the Religious Right. Even sympathetic reviewers have said that some of the show's more outrageous sequences have missed the mark. There have also been rumours that Drawn Together may not be renewed for its 4th season, which may make the PTC's campaign academic. However, the Religious Right still has their favourite enemy: South Park, which has been renewed until 2008.

Will we see PMRC/CCA-style hearings on animation in the near future?

It's hard to say. Certainly, the U.S. far-right is in decline now that many of their champions, such as former Congressman Rick Santorum, have been voted out of office. That mediates against the makers of Shrek 2 having to answer to a Senate subcommittee. However, some family-values types, such as Kefauver and PMRC crusader Tipper Gore (wife of former Vice President Al Gore) came from the Democrat side of the political tracks. It's always possible that some ambitious senator might want to make a name for himself by putting together a highly-publicized subcommittee on animation and their effect on children. No one knew who Al Gore was before his wife Tipper started the PMRC hearings.

However, most adult-animated shows and programming blocks have covered their tracks well. They're on premium or cable channels, and add some sort of disclaimer statement to such shows to mollify law-and-order types. Of course this makes them a beacon for kids looking for forbidden fruit, but libertarians would argue that parents should police their offsprings' watching habits more if they're so concerned.

These days, the U.S. has enough international enemies these days that it has no need to invent internal ones.