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It was also the best anti-drug episode of all-time because they flat out kill a kid, and we'd like to clarify that sentence before it earns us a federal visit. Eighties characters could host a grenade-eating competition against suicide-bombers in an orphanage and not one child would be scratched*. But in BraveStarr, drugs actually had irreversible consequences. And the kid actually enjoyed the drugs. It's almost like drugs are attractive in the short term! There was even understanding for violent maniacs when a huge drugged up thug is protected from vigilante beatings by Bravestarr. They had 80s writers who actually seemed to know about narcotics. I'm assuming that week's episode of Hills Street Blues had Frank Furillo battling crooked mining prospectors who looked like giant cockroaches.

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*Technically the Captain Planet episode killed Linka's cousin. But in the early 90s, making a point by killing a Russian was less emphatic than shouting.





In space, everyone knows you're tripping.

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Instead, they give advice that's bad because it's too effective. The good kid fetches the cartoon's titular superhero but his friend still dies, making drugs more evil and powerful than zombie curses, atomic warheads and planet-destroying alien invasions combined. It would be like one of those GI Joe PSAs if Joe showed up in time and the kid still died because the good kid procrastinated. The lesson was very clear: If you don't narc on your friends instantly, they will die and it will be your fault. So BraveStarr's aim was to protect a generation from drugs and peer pressure from friends by making sure they ended up with neither.





"Dead, but finally sober."

Check out more from Luke in 7 Kickass Sci-Fi Cancer Cures and The 5 Most Retarded Causes People Are Actually Fighting For.