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'Bazooka Joe' Covertly Corrupting Our Youth
While working on a co-worker's computer the other day, I noticed something at her desk so appalling that it could explain why the country has slowly been going to Hell-in-a-hand-basket for nearly the last 60 years.
Pinned to the corkboard by her computer were several comic strips that come with the Bazooka-brand bubblegum. I asked her about them and she said these were the funniest ones she found in her packs of gum, so she had decided to keep them.
There's nothing too unusual about that, but while waiting for her computer to restart I observed a couple of insidious facts about these seemingly harmless bubble gum comics.
The name of the comic says it all:
Bazooka Joe and His Gang.
Bazooka Joe comics have been around since the 1950s. While they might first appear to be harmless fun, do you have any idea the kind of message that this comic strip is giving the impressionable youth that are chewing this brand of bubble gum?
First of all, just consider the name of the main character of this comic. Bazooka. And what is a bazooka? A great big gun, that's what. Children that chew this brand of gum and read this comic could believe that being armed with a weapon capable of disabling a tank is cool.
And since everyone knows that lessons and impressions learned at an early age tend to stick with you, when those children became teenagers they would think back to their halcyon days of chewing bubble gum and reading the Bazooka Joe comics and think to themselves "Bazooka Joe was cool. I could use a bazooka so I can be cool too, just like Joe."
But since a bazooka is not the easiest weapon to come by, those teenagers would settle for the next best thing like AK-47s or Uzis or whatever pistol they could lay their hands on.
Which brings us to the second half of the comic strip's name.
Bazooka Joe and His Gang
Did you know that before the 1950s, the only gang that existed was The Little Rascals? I read that on the Internet, so it must be true. Just Spanky and Alfalfa and Buckwheat and the rest of the "He-Man Women Haters Club." Did they have any bazookas or AK-47s? No. Did you ever see Buckwheat try to "pop a cap" into the neighborhood "rich kid?" Of course, not.
But then along came the 1950's and Bazooka Joe and His Gang and practically overnight the Hell's Angels and the Crips and the Bloods and dozens of other gangs were wreaking havoc in our country's largest cities.
I feel we can blame this proliferation of gun-toting gangs squarely on Bazooka-brand bubblegum and their comic Bazooka Joe.
This madness has got to stop.
It is only a matter of time before enough gum-chewing kiddies here in the Heartland grow up thinking it is OK to be in a gang. Bazooka-brand bubblegum and its "message" has to be silenced for the good of the country.
I'm not saying that we put them out of business. They just need to change the name of their comic.
For instance, how about Basketball Joe and His Swell Bunch of Pals? That would be acceptable. That would quit giving kids the impression that it's cool to be a gun-carrying member of a gang.
It's time to stop our country from going to Beelzebub-in-a-bubblegum-pack.
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