Tasteless candy for children
Chewing gum with
"Atom-Anton" and "Fauligue Paula"
Horror
stickers disturb parents and authorities / signs of an
invasion?
Every morning there is a struggle at
the bakeries: Martina Fischer and her son Jan discuss whether to buy
gummy snakes, honey mussels and sherbet sticks as well as bread
rolls. For the past few days it concerns more than candy: 8
year old Jan finds the new chewing gum "really great",
however not because of the taste but because of the stickers that
come with it.
For example # 8a: A little man with
big wide eyes is pressing on a button. His head explodes and
a bright mushroom cloud shoots out - "Atom-Anton" is at
work. He belongs to the "Garbage Pail Kids", the
Mülleimerkinder in German. Just recently three pictures
of these creatures together with the chewing gum can be bought at
the bakeries or in the supermarket for 50 pfennigs:
"Elektro-Otto" who writhes with pain in an electric chair,
"Fauligue Paula" who crawls out of the grave eaten by worms
or "Der kaputte Franz" who's arms and legs are cut
off. On the back of the stickers are "certificates of
stupidity", an "entitlement to cheat",
"permission to tell tales", and other such witty
certificates.
Instead of Donald Duck stickers, the
children of Munich now swap horror stickers. "These
stickers have been an enormous success in England", said a
spokesman for DOK, the importer of these candies made in Ireland.
The article is still in the test phase;
the terrible chewing gum is offered to dealers in a package along
with harmless gummy bears and other candies. However that will
change: soon the Garbage Pail Kids will be sold as a separate
article. The little customers between 7 and 14 years old are
enthusiastic, the importers as well. The turn over increases
from week to week.
Apparently the company that chose these
brutal pictures has no scruples. An employee responsible for
the pictures said, "One shouldn't domineer over the
children. They decide what they like themselves - and they like
our pictures. There's also bloodshed in fairy tales like Hansel
and Gretel."
For Martina Fischer it concerns more
than whether they like these visions of horror or not.
"If I ban him from buying them he'll see them at his friends
where there's a flourishing trade in swaps.", she says and thus
loses the struggle in the store with a bad conscience. "I
don't want to buy Jan the chewing gum cards because I think such
scenes of violence could harm him."
"With these cards children are
targeted with violence and evil. Their feelings with respect
to horror and brutality become blunted. In my opinion those
responsible are extremely irresponsible", said Helga
Büttner, youth protection officer of the Munich youth
authorities. However she can't do much about these
pictures. If she, as representative of the youth authorities,
considers that a product is undesirable, she makes representations
to the national office for undesirable literature in Bonn. It
is decided there whether the product may continue to be sold or
not.
However because of the bureaucracy it
takes between two months and a year to decide about a ban.
"Particularly with toys and candies the decision makers in Bonn
often can't agree whether a product has a bad influence on youth or
not. It is usually not possible to include such a product in
the 'Index'," Helga Büttner regrets. However in the
case of the chewing gum she will request a ban although things such
as a direct attack of the horror figure on a second creature
necessary for certain inclusion in the "Index" are
missing. "So it doesn't concern direct violence but
rather 'only' horror. Not only that, every card would have to
be included separately in the 'Index'. So we don't have much
chance to ban the horror stickers," the guardian of youth
believes.
So there will still be the discussions
between mother and son every morning about the sense and nonsense of
these candies - about "Killer-Karl" who raves as a Rambo
punk with knuckle duster, dynamite and machine gun, up to his tricks
between the pretzels and the plum tarts. |
