Duck, Donald!

Is Disney too violent?

Donald Duck is having a devil of a time making his nephews behave. The little brats stick him in the rear end, shoot him with arrows and tie him to a stake. Classic Walt Disney comedy, right? Guess again. In the view of the National Coalition on Television Violence, it is an example of the "quite troubling" level of violence on cable's year-old Disney Channel. After monitoring the channel for two weeks, the watchdog organization found an average of nine violent acts an hour on real-life programming and 18 an hour on cartoons, nearly as high as on the three networks. Among the offenses: space battles in the Disney film The Black Hole, swordplay in an adaptation of Stevenson's Kidnapped, fistfights in Rin Tin Tin and the cartoon antics of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and the Three Little Pigs.

While conceding that the Disney Channel has positive educational shows, Coalition Chairman Thomas Radecki, a University of Illinois psychiatrist, claims its violence can be harmful to children. Disney Channel President James Jimirro replies that the channel has received widespread praise from parents and teachers and only six complaints about violence out of 30,000 letters. Or, as Donald might put it, "?!*#x@*!!!"