UP IN SMOKE SMOKING SCENES IN CARTOONS SPARK CAT-AND-MOUSE GAME WITH CENSORS.

Byline: JULIA M. SCOTT Staff Writer

One concerned British viewer and an animated cat and mouse have sparked a debate about protecting children from smoking versus preserving art and history.

After an unidentified viewer complained that two Tom and Jerry shorts in which characters lit up were not appropriate in cartoons aimed at children, Time Warner had illustrators paint over a cigar and a cigarette.

Both cartoons were made more than 50 years ago, when smoking on-screen was commonplace.

The flare-up has raised questions about whether altering decades-old cartoons is rewriting history to satisfy current values or whether it's necessary to keep children safe.

Parents Television Council, a nonprofit group based in Los Angeles that advocates improving entertainment programs for younger audiences, applauded the decision to edit smoking scenes.

``If children see smoking glamorized on films it makes it all the more likely they are going to pick up that habit,'' said Melissa Caldwell of PTC. ``That's been the consensus of the research community.''

Caldwell believes altering cartoons is a simple way to protect children.

``This is an entertainment form,'' she said. ``It's not like altering the `Mona Lisa' or adding a cigarette to the `David.'''

Illustrator Signe Wilkinson, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning, disagreed.

``Even if it was Tom and Jerry saying hideously racist things, it's good for us to know where we came from,'' said Wilkinson, who draws for The Philadelphia Daily News and is an outspoken advocate for free speech. ``It's also good for young people to know things can change.''

Wilkinson was skeptical that smoking habits can be picked up from television.

``If people pick up smoking from a Tom and Jerry cartoon, they've got many deeper problems that need to be attended to first.''

Smoking characters have a long list of credits, even on shows aimed at youngsters.

Pecos Bill, Bugs Bunny and Lampwick from ``Pinocchio'' all smoke.

``Back in that time, it was completely acceptable to show something like that,'' said Cynthia Overman, who teaches character animation at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. ``Smoking was not considered dangerous.''

Because of tighter standards, episodes containing violence, rough language or racial stereotypes such as those in ``Song of the South'' and ``Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs'' have been edited or removed entirely from network line-ups, Overman said.

The issue, she said, is whether people today should revise what came before when it doesn't suit current tastes.

``This is all retrospective,'' Overman said. ``People are looking back and looking at films saying, Well, we don't think that way any more and this is offensive.''

In one of the offending cat-and-mouse cartoons, Tom tries to woo a lady cat by rolling and smoking a cigarette with one hand. In another film, a tennis opponent is puffing on a stogie.

In addition to changing the two episodes, British employees at Hanna-Barbera are reviewing other scenes that glamorize cigarettes and cigars. Cartoons broadcast domestically have not been altered, according to James Anderson, a spokesman for Cartoon Network, the U.S. cable channel owned by Time Warner that showed the episodes in Britain.

``We are evaluating the scenes in the U.S. but we always do that periodically,'' Anderson said. ``No decision has been made whether there is going to be editing in the U.S.''

The company made the changes after receiving a letter asking them to review the cartoons from Ofcom, the British equivalent of the Federal Communications Commission.

The removal process is lengthy.

``We just go through it frame by frame and take the cigarette out by painting over it,'' said Lucy Amos of Boomerang. ``It's quite a time-consuming job, but obviously one that we are dedicated to doing because we're primarily a children's channel and we want to do the best for our audience.''

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(1 -- 4 -- color) no caption (Tom and Jerry cartoons)