It amazes me sometime how often we hear about sex and violence on TV and in video games affecting our youth and turning them into bad people (Joe Leiberman I’m looking at you) . However one thing that people seem to overlook is that youth have always been subject to what many would say is “Adult Content”. Most recently games such as Grand Theft Auto have been getting most of the heat since they have a mature rating yet are marketed towards minors. But is this really anything new? Pro wrestling has been around forever right? And its always been violent. Sure Hulk Hogan‘s Atomic Leg Drop from the eighties isn’t quite as disturbing as Edge‘s “Conchairto” (he lays his opponent’s head on a steel chair and then smashes it with another steel chair. Often leaving them lying in a pool of thier own blood) but its still violent right? What about other disturbing images that have been around for a long time? Like smoking. The goverment tries to keep cigarette companies from advertising on TV but that hasn’t kept kids from seeing tobacco products everyday. For instance most people do not know that several comic book super heroes regularly smoke. Wolverine and Fantastic Four’s Thing smoke cigars all the time and until recently the X-Men’s Gambit smoked cigarettes (the character recently kicked the habit though). I say all this to say that it may be wrong to expose youth to certain images through media but lets not act like its new. To send my message home I’m leaving you with a video of an ad that ran in 1961 for Winston Cigarettes starring none other than the characters from the Flintstones.