Censorship and the incredible shrinking tightwad

[Kriton Kyrimis]

Let me clarify my position on "The Incredible Shrinking Tightwad":

I am aware of most of the things that Don mentioned, and I do know that
the story was only censored in the US. When I mentioned Don's editors
(the people at Egmont), I simply wanted to say that since they have
been known to suggest changes to Don's stories while he is making them,
I would have expected them to make such a suggestion while the story
was still in the script stage, so that it would have been possible for
Don to make changes that would have fitted seamlessly into the story.
I certainly didn't mean that it was the people at Egmont who did (or
should have done) the censoring.

As for other instances of similar humor, either inserted by others (the
BARF sound Don mentioned) or by Don himself (the spitoon gag in the Lo$,
to which some people have had a similar adverse reaction), these are
somehow mitigated by being isolated gags, on which the action of the
story does not allow you the time to dwell. If you do dwell on them,
your reaction may not be laughter--I have stopped to think about both
gags, and I find both disturbing, especially the second one.  The problem
with "Tightwad" is that there is a series of such gags strung together,
which gives you enough time to dwell on the matter.

As for intending for the reader to decide what some of the nasty stuff is,
well, given the readership of Don's stories, I'm pretty sure that most
of them are able to fill in the gaps and realize exactly what it is.
If you leave a bunch of prunes in a dirty pocket for a while, then
what's left in the pocket after removing the prunes is not prune juice,
but a mixture of fermented prune pulp, pocket lint and dirt, in which
all sorts of nasty germs are swimming.  Stepping into a puddle of this
stuff is not at all comparable to having a clean, wholesome pie thrown
at your face, where you can lick off the cream and laugh the matter off.

As to what Disney does in general (i.e., the Lion King gags), I couldn't
care less.  I was referring to Disney comics, which are not produced by
Disney, but do have a high quality standard, a quality that has evolved
by itself, without having been dictated by political correctness, American
puritanism, or whatever other guidelines Disney is supposed to follow.

Finally, regarding censorship, I never said I applauded it. I merely
said that I understood how the Disney people felt after reading this
story and why they felt they should exercise their right of censorship
(a right which they should not have been given, but this is an entirely
different matter). As for the subject of my posting, well, that was simply
an eye-cacher, without any references to it in the body of the posting;
I really wanted my posting to be read, something that might not have
happened had I titled it "A boring diatribe on why I didn't like The
Incredible Shrinking Tightwad", or words to that effect.

	Kriton	(e-mail: kyrimis at cti.gr)
	      	(WWW:    http://dias.cti.gr/~kyrimis)
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"Where is your optimism?"
"It opted out."
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