Given the current times and mores, anyone think it’s odd that one of the main running gags in Beetle Bailey is having the poor schmuck get beaten regularly by Sarge? Now, I’m not saying our poor children must be protected from any and all examples of such savagery, but the recurrent theme seems to me to be in bad taste, and even worse, not very funny. Comments?
Two things. First, Beetle Bailey had been around for 50 years, so new it’s not. Second, violence in cartoons is also an established plot device (see Looney tunes, especially Wile E. Coyote)