Paul Terry to TV GUIDE: “Kids love violence!”

Yesterday, during commercial breaks on Stu’s Show, I was going through Stu’s complete collection of vintage TV Guide magazines. There I found this intriguing 1955 article (below), written by animation producer Paul Terry, called “How To Make Children Laugh” – subtitled “A Cartoonist Tells The Brutal Truth”.

What is that “brutal truth“? That “children react best to situations in which there is a slight suggestion of violence“. Terry, who had just sold his studio to CBS, was hyping his ancient Terrytoon shorts then being screened on Barker Bill’s Cartoon Show. It’s a strange little article and his conclusions are debatable – but he got one thing right, the last line: “…the popularity of animated cartoons will live on and on; the humor in them is visual and, therefore, universal.”