Violence in cartoons teaches children aggressive behavior and desensitizes them to acts of violence.  Children watch and understand television in different ways, depending on the length of their attention span, the way in which they process information, the amount of mental effort they invest, and their own life experiences.  Certain plot elements in portrayals of violence are considered high risk for children.  These elements include characterizations in which the perpetrator is attractive because viewers may identify with such a character, showing violence as being justified, going unpunished, and having minimal consequences to the victim.

Cartoon violence permeates children's programming.  Violence toward animals is rampant in Saturday morning children's programs, where more than one-half of the animals depicted suffer overt physical violence.  These violence-saturated portrayals are not only dangerous to animals, they are also misleading and detrimental to humane attitudes in general.  Most cartoons are constructed with vivid production features, which greatly increases children's predisposition to violence.

Researchers have determined the following ways in which a violent cartoon program may impact young viewers:   It can encourage children to learn aggressive behavior and attitudes; it can cultivate fearful and pessimistic attitudes in children about the non-television world; and, it can desensitize children to real-world and fantasy violence.  According to researcher Dr. George Gerbner, many studies have concluded that after watching violence, children are more aggressive.  Also, children who watch violent cartoons are more likely to think of the world as a violent and dangerous place.

It is society's and parents' responsibility to teach children the vast difference between Wile E. Coyote blowing himself up in a Looney Tune and what the real world experiences when violence occurs.  Parents should explain that these characters are drawn and not a character in a costume.  Society may not be able to stop the violence in cartoons and on television, but it can stop the effects of it.  “Even in cartoon violence, we see victims that really don't die," writes clinical psychologist Evelyn Kohan.  “But people do die when they're shot with guns, and people really do die when people hurt them in violent ways.  Our children have to know that."

It is certainly true that cartoon violence does not account for all the causes of children's aggression.   It is also true that some children are a great deal more likely to be affected by television violence than others, and it is these children who are likely to be potentially more aggressive anyway.  But the effect of cartoon and television violence is to make these “at-risk" children even more aggressive than they would otherwise be.  And although the group especially at risk might be a minority of viewers, they are likely to be the majority of aggressors.  This fact makes them, and the violent content of television, worthy of our attention.  Higher priority must be given to achieving a more realistic and positive representation of animals on television.  Such reform would be a progressive step toward stemming society's 'culture of violence' and its desensitization to the suffering of others.