There are certain franchises we loved as a child that we’ll never forget. We were inspired by the heroes, we detested the villains, and we learned important lessons from our favorite characters. Some we carry with us into adulthood, still watching, playing, and reminiscing about them in our everyday lives (much to the chagrin of responsible, mature adults). In many ways, these cartoons, comics and video games have shaped us into the very people we are today.

But if society has taught us anything, it’s that anything we enjoy or love can be tenuously linked with more sinister significance. You know, Harry Potter surely can’t be that popular just because it’s fun and enjoyable. It’s gotta be Satanic! So your childhood favorites? Totally evil and created merely as propaganda to brainwash and enslave a generation of godless minions ready to do their Dark Lord’s bidding. Don’t believe me? Take a look at this iron-clad, “totally irrefutable” evidence. Did you know that…

The Legend of Zelda is an anti-Semitic allegory

According to this theory, in The Legend of Zelda, you play as Link, Aryan posterboy and slayer of Jews. I mean, take one look at this face and tell me it doesn’t scream “master race”:



All the classic signs are there. Blonde hair: Check. Blue eyes: Check. Elven ears and fairy garb: err…check?

In fact, Link finds out that he is a member of the Hylians, the most important and revered race in the history of Hyrule, more important than the stupid Gorons, the effeminate Zora, and the godless Gerudo. Even the princess he so zealously saves is a prototype blonde-haired, blue-eyed angel. And who is always behind the kidnappings of this picture-perfect bastion of purity and beauty?

My dear GOD, look at that schnoz! If this isn’t some vilified Jewish outcast, I don’t know what is. Ganondorf is a power-hungry havenot from the desert of Gerudo hell-bent on stealing and destroying the Holiest of Holy religions, the Triforce. Three paragons of virtue…sounds an awful lot like Christianity to me! To make matters worse, the Triforce is made out of solid gold, an obvious inference to the Jewish stereotype of money hoarding. And when Ganondorf doesn’t get his way, he transforms into a sniveling, repugnant, all-powerful pig. Can this game be any more blatantly anti-Semitic?

Of course it can, thanks to the vile, sick minds at Nintendo. Even areas not pertinent to the storyline are laden in Nazi imagery and propaganda. Just take a look at the first-ever Zelda game, setting an unholy precedence for the whole damned series:



The horror!

That’s the third dungeon of the game, shaped not-so-inconspicuously as a Nazi Swatstika. Never mind the fact that the level is literally named “The Manji”, which is the name of the ancient Buddhist character standing for universal harmony and balance of opposites (Decidedly different from the whole “Nazi vision” thing.) That’s not relevant. What is relevant is, erm…NAZIS! Everywhere!

This isn’t the only game designed to convert your children into capitalist-hating, fascist scum. Why, just take a look at…

Superman is an Anti-American symbol of Fascism

So, there’s this guy. Named Dr. Fredric Wertham. He’s a German immigrant and he really, really hates comic books.



He probably hates you, too.

He hates comics so much in fact that he wrote a book in 1954 named Seduction of the Innocent: The Influence on Comic Books on Today’s Youth which was surprisingly influential and important to the history of comic books. It basically begat the Comics Code Authority that restricted sex and violence, forbade the criticism of religion, the use of slang words and a long list of other unacceptable practices.

His main issue with comic books as a medium is that it encourages children to do or think wildly unrealistic things, like believing they can fly or that you must have super powers to accomplish anything in life. Well, that’s not entirely true. He also seems to harbor an extreme amount of xenophobia and just outright paranoia when it comes to comic books, as if sinister countries would use heroic tales of men flying around New York City in their underwear as a vessel for nationalist hatred. From his book:

Superman (with the big S on his uniform—we should, I suppose, be thankful that it is not an S.S.) needs an endless stream of ever new submen, criminals and “foreign-looking” people not only to justify his existence but even to make it possible. It is this feature that engenders in children either one or the other of two attitudes: either they fantasize themselves as supermen, with the attendant prejudices against the submen, or it makes them submissive and receptive to the blandishments of strong men who will solve all their social problems for them—by force.

I don’t have a great memory, so this could be faulty logic, but I really don’t remember reading a Superman comic in my days as a wistful, carefree youngin’ and harbor even a remote tinge of prejudice for Superman’s “submen”, nor did the comics condition me to expect a supernatural Kryptonian to solve all of my life’s problems.

Somehow he also manages to make a direct link to Superman and Nazism. I think you can see where the connection gets made, much like Link up there: Superior to the rest of humanity, bastion of (apparently) twisted justice, world police mentality, etc. To a child? A selfless do-gooder sworn to protect Earth from nefarious enemies. To Dr. Fredric Wertham? Nazi propaganda. And before you think he just gets a Nazi hard-on for Superman, he has some pretty serious beef with Batman, too: An entire chapter in Seduction named “I Want to Be a Sex Maniac!” accuses Batman and Robin of being “a wish dream of two homosexuals living together”.



Ya know what, I’m gonna have to side with Freddy on that one.

The Care Bears are a dark cult promoting magick to children

The entire reason for the Care Bears’ existence is to teach children important principles such as sharing, embracing love and caring for your fellow man. What ulterior motives could this band of friendly ursidae possibly hold deep within their saccharin-sweet exterior? Enter: Phil Phillips, a staunch, ultra conservative Christian with an amazingly alliterative appellation who indulges us into the dark dangers of Care Bears:

Throughout the Care Bear series, there is a subtle interweaving of three ingredients: Humanism, magic, and Eastern religions… the Bible tells us that true love is not based solely on feelings but on commitment. The Humanistic element of our society wants children to base their life and actions on their feelings. In reality, the most miserable people I know are those who have based their lives on their feelings instead of the Word of God… Humanism teaches: we are God; there are no absolutes; and we control our own destiny. This movement has its basis in Eastern religions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism. In line with this, the bears teach children to use their feelings to control their lives. As Christians, we know this is not true. The life of the believer is controlled by God and His will. Only He can solve our problems. On the other hand, Care Bears play an almost Godlike, or at least an angelic, role when helping out children in trouble and in establishing their own religious order and rituals.”



MONSTERS!!!

So there you have it. Any children’s show that nicely extols basic human morality is doing the Devil’s handywork. That filthy rainbow emblazoned on Cheer Bear’s chest? A universal symbol for the soulless New Age movement, of course. Those godless hearts adorning Love-a-Lot Bear’s potbellied exterior? Humanitarianism.

If that’s not a fair, justified conclusion I just don’t know what is. This guy’s views on popular culture make the claims that Harry Potter is Satanic look like a tautologist, one-to-one comparison. But wait, if he is this worked up about Care Bears, one of the most generic, unoffensive cartoons in the history of the art form, why doesn’t he have a beef with any other piece of children’s fiction?

Turns out he does, in a big way. Phillips has written multiple books on the Satanization of our nation’s youth, one of which being Saturday Morning Mind Control, a treatise on the danger of Saturday morning cartoons wherein he actively crusades against the following seemingly innocuous cornerstones of childhood:

Care Bears

The Smurfs

Star Wars

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

Dungeons and Dragons

E.T.

Oh, and if his name or the name of his work sounds familiar, it’s probably because we’ve already chronicled how much he despises Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I’m starting to think this whole “crusade for Christianity” is just a cover, and he’s really just exacting revenge for some jovial, innocent toddler vomiting on his suede suit in the 70s. Care Bears doesn’t have an ulterior agenda any more than The Muppets does.

What’s that? It’s segue way time?!

The Muppets Are Liberal, Capitalism-Hating Commies

Dan Gainor, a member of the conservative Media Research Center, would apparently like nothing more than to exhume the corpse of Jim Henson himself and punch him directly in the face for creating such a detestable gaggle of agenda-laden puppetry. The Huffington Post has him quoted here:

“It’s amazing how far the left will go just to manipulate your kids, to convince them, give the anti-corporate message,” he said. “They’ve been doing it for decades. Hollywood, the left, the media, they hate the oil industry,” Gainor continued. “They hate corporate America. And so you’ll see all these movies attacking it, whether it was ‘Cars 2,’ which was another kids’ movie, the George Clooney movie ‘Syriana,’ ‘There Will Be Blood,’ all these movies attacking the oil industry, none of them reminding people what oil means for most people: fuel to light a hospital, heat your home, fuel an ambulance to get you to the hospital if you need that. And they don’t want to tell that story.”

I haven’t seen this much worry and paranoia surrounding puppets since the last time someone passed by The Jeff Dunham Show while channel surfing and I was afraid I was going to have to watch it.

Of course, the greatest part of this whole ordeal was that you knew it was only going to be a matter of time before the amalgamation of felt and plastic known as Kermit the Frog retaliated to Fox News tarnishing his variety program’s good name. Take a look for yourself:

The character in the movie that Fox News took issue with was named “Tex Richman.” F--k’s sake. He may as well have been named Dick Moneygrubber and had a handlebar mustache with a wingspan that rivals an elephant’s for how goddamned caricatured and unoffensive that is.

Sadly, The Muppets aren’t even our biggest threat to our childrens’ purity and future. There is an even bigger evil lurking in the shadows…waiting. Waiting to pounce on the innocence of our nation’s youth like a lioness pounces its prey. Fittingly, this threat comes from the land of the Rising Sun:

Pokémon is a Neo-Nazi, Satanic, Bigoted, Animal-hating, Ultraviolent, Murdering Arbiter of Hate

Pokémon is a unique, but fairly simple concept: Pokémon are living creatures that are kept as some strange, encouraged hybrid of domesticated pets and enslaved fighting cocks; everyone from the elderly to middle school aged children capture them in the wild and force them to live in tiny Pokéballs with absolutely no room to enjoy life (think Aladdin…”itty bitty living space”) and train them to become bloodthirsty killers, whilst asking no questions or even thinking about defying their masters. The Pokétrainers then use these pets to gain worldwide notoriety. It’s a strange concept, sure, but this is f-----g Japan we’re talking about here. A show like this in Japan is about as alarming and concerning as Raisin Bran.



Won’t somebody think of the CHILDREN?!

With a franchise as unanimously beloved as Pokémon, it should come as no surprise that people have come out of the woodwork to speak against it. It’s almost hard to keep track how many hatecrimes and how much sorcery has been attributed to the series, but we’ll try. Over the years, Pokémon has been accused of…

…Nazism.

In the anime episode “All Things Bright and Beautifly!,” Team Rocket has some bizarre fantasy that involves themselves and Meowth instructing a bunch of nameless grunts apparently in a classroom during an LSD trip.

Anyone with even a rudimentary background on World War II should be able to catch the problem here. Clearly they’re performing the “Heil” gesture, like some buffoonish, androgynous parodies of Adolf Hitler. It was subsequently edited out for the sensitive American and European audiences.

There’s also the fact that Registeel looks like if a bunch of Nazis gang raped an R2 unit.



“Registeel used GOOSESTEP! It’s super effective!”

…Satanism.



Fundamentalist Christians seem to have the uncanny ability to find Satanism in just about anything. According to the fine folks at Bible.com, Pokémon is satanic from the very beginning, starting with its name. “Pokémon” is short for “pocket monsters”, and, well…I’ll let them explain.

Pokemon is short for “Pocket Monsters”. When I was growing up, we were taught monsters were evil, not something to play with. When I was a little girl, the “boogie man” or monsters caused us fear and we did not want to be around them. This game makes some of its monsters out as friendly; thus causing children to embrace certain evil spirits as friends instead of resisting them.

Play Pokémon, embrace the devil. Many Pokémon are of the “psychic” type, meaning they use mind control, brainwaves and other mental abilities to incapacitate or otherwise harm their opponents. Well, according to the Bible, anyone with psychic powers have been given the powers by Satan himself. And here I was thinking they were just full of s--t.



I’m looking at you.

On top of that, many Pokémon employ zen or Buddhist principles to their meandering, pointless lives inside of a goddamned magical ball, which go against the teachings of Christianity. A game developed in the far east, featuring East Asian beliefs? The insanity!

There’s also the fact that a major storyline element in the game is that Pokémon evolve. Uh-oh. “Evolution” is right up there with “Abortion” and “Harry Potter” in the list of things you cannot say to some of these people without evoking the fury of a thousand burning suns.



PIKACHU is trying to evolve! But, evolution is untrue psychobabble! I DIDN’T COME FROM NO MONKEY, AND NEITHER DID PIKACHU!

A lot of this is just finger-pointing in the Satanism category, with a lot of “well that’s evil!” “no, THAT’S evil!” with not a hell of a lot of proof to back it up. But then, THEN, we come to the cold-hard evidence. Take a listen, if you dare:

The tape doesn’t lie. I heard it, clear as day: an innocent, unintelligible inversion of “Gotta catch ’em all”.

…Zionism.

Please don’t take this portion of the article as being anti-Christian. I know many level-headed, well intentioned Christians who would dismiss all of this as complete garbage. And it’s not just fundamentalist Christians who are having all the fun here. Not to be outdone, fundamentalist Muslims have also purchased their tickets for the Poké-hating gravy train. So much so that in 2001 in the Grand Mufti in Saudi Arabia issued a fatwa (juristic ruling) banning the entire Pokémon franchise in the country, claiming it encourages gambling (?) and promotes Zionism (??). The ruling wasn’t out of left-field, either: influencial authorities in Qatar and Egypt agreed with, and joined in banning the franchise. It seems that it was just entirely made up in parts of the Middle East that the word “Pokémon” translates into “I am Jewish”. (No, really.)

…Racism.

Pokémon has been accused of bigotry, especially anti-African American bigotry, on multiple occasions. One of the biggest issues is the original design of the Pokémon Jynx.

Critic Carole Boston Weatherford basically flipped her s--t when she saw Jynx, a Pokémon that she believed was a racist caricature of an African American. In a column written for newspapers across Alabama (the definitive national barometer in racial equality and social issues), she wrote:

The character Jynx, Pokémon #124, has decidedly human features [in contrast to most other characters]: jet-black skin, huge pink lips, gaping eyes, a straight blonde mane and a full figure, complete with cleavage and wiggly hips. Put another way, Jynx resembles an overweight drag queen incarnation of Little Black Sambo, a racist stereotype from a children’s book long ago purged from libraries.

I’ve personally never equated long, straight, blonde hair with black stereotypes, but I guess that’s just me. In any event, Nintendo changed Jynx’s appearance in later games and episodes to have an otherworldly purple skin tone to appease the four people in the world who get seriously offended at the appearance of Pokémon.

…Killing Children?

In 1999, Burger King started giving Pokéballs as toys in ther kids meals. I’m sure they expected children nicely pantomiming their favorite scenes from the show, imitating Ash Ketchum and Misty on a quest to find the rarest Pokémon in all of Kanto. Maybe even an overzealous child or two hurling the Pokéballs at their siblings like deadly fastballs. I’m sure what they didn’t expect, though, is any child fit to play with any sort of toy ever made suffocating themselves to death by affixing an opened Pokéball over their mouth and nose simultaneously like it was some sort of goddamned oxygen mask.

Of course, this is exactly what happened. So Burger King recalled the toys and exchanged already handed out ones for chicken fries and hamburgers. You know, healthy things.