I was thinking about The White Seal today. Not the show with the white basketball coach. That was The White Shadow. No, I'm talking about The White Seal, a seasonal cartoon for kids that was about the dangers of clubbing baby seals, because if you do club baby seals, you will be menaced by a white seal, which as we all know is pretty scary. I remember digging this special when I was a pup, though I don't think they show it anymore. It was probably too traumatic. In some corner of my mind it is linked to a horrible film they showed us in grade school that featured a field full of prairie dogs being blown up using copious amounts of TNT. Of course, it was very similar to another Rudyard Kipling cartoon: Rikki-Tiki Tavi, which was about the dangers of being a King Cobra when there's a strutting mongoose hanging around the veranda.

Anyway, what I'm getting at here is that I think these sort of stories scarred me emotionally as a child. I get too worked up when I see them and end up sobbing like a little baby.

Whenever there are animals on screen, I know trouble is afoot. When you've got a cute little dog in a movie, he may as well be wearing a red shirt on Star Trek: his fictional thread will be cut short just as soon as you, the viewer, grow attached to him. Don't even talk to me about Where The Red Fern Grows. I'm getting choked up just thinking about it. Or The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Where's PETA on this one I ask you? Protect the fictional doggies! Let them no longer be used to tug our heartstrings! Make their existence more meaningful than simply a plot device!