Protection from the toons!

File this one in the "You gotta be kidding" department.

Turner Broadcasting has announced that it is editing out all scenes of characters smoking from the popular "Tom and Jerry" cartoons, along with similar scenes in "The Flinstones" and "Scooby-Doo." Apparently an overseas viewer complained when seeing one of the characters light up in a broadcast on Boomerang, a Turner station.

Give me a break.

Regardless of how diligently the politically correct may try, you can't erase history. People smoked. Yeah, it's bad. Once we knew that, most people stopped. Those who didn't? Well, it's their own choice. And I guaran-dang-tee you none of them started puffing because they saw Tom the cat light one up.

This is, sadly, just the latest in a trend.

Speedy Gonzales cartoons aren't shown on TV anymore. Racist. A dozen or so Bugs Bunny cartoons are banned forever for the same reason. An entire group is trying to get Bugs and his Warner Brothers pals thrown off the air altogether. The reason? Shows are too violent.

I don't know about you, but I can't tell you how many times I've tried to blow up a Road Runner with various Acme products or slap a wandering hunter with an oversized mallet.

Meanwhile cannons thunder in the Middle East, gas is through the roof and most of us can't afford health care.

But, by golly, we won't see smoking on Tom and Jerry cartoons anymore.

And we wonder why the world is the way it is...