A thought from Harlan Ellison

Picking through an old notebook, I found this quote from Harlan Ellison. It's apropos of nothing but I like it, and it bears repeating (I've posted it before I think. I just can't remember when...).

You can sympathize, accordingly, with my upset at the major networks' fear & trembling as regards what they show the little no-neck monsters every Saturday ay-em. Last season, there was such a hue and cry raised by paranoid parents (who can't cop to being responsible for their kids' traumas, so have to blame it on everything from Hong Kong Flu to masturbation, with comic books and TV getting a big blast) that kiddie-shows--notably the animateds--were warping their urchins' minds, that radical changes were proposed in Saturday morning programming....

Refuting...the running-scared set is no problem. Arrayed in the Wertham philosophy that TV (and comic book) violence cause children to use meat cleavers on their mummies are hundreds of psychologists and psychiatrists who contend that filmed horror and terror are good for kids, that they offer a purgative, a release for adolescent tensions and hostilities.

On a personal level, I can vouch for the accuracy of that theory. Every guy who I know who grooved behind horror movies and comic books when he was a tot is today a productive, beautiful person, with imagination and a sense of wonder. The few I know who were only allowed to read Albert Payson Terhune and see movies were the virtues of God and Dogs were extolled are square, hidebound, bigoted, short-sighted schlepps who sport SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL COSSACK bumper stickers.
--Harlan Ellison, in the December 28, 1968, edition of The Glass Teat.