Today I mocked the FCC. The FCC, for those of you who don't know, is the government agency responsible for keeping television "decent" under the outdated value system created in the era where people thought that Victorean values were a good idea to bring back. You know, the era where married couples couldn't have their beds shown less than 5 feet away from each other. The era of shitty programming like Leave it to Beaver. But I digress.

If you haven't noticed on the TV, the warning boxes for TV programs have at least doubled in size. The problem is, if parents didn't pay attention to them in the first place, what makes them think that making them larger is going to change anything? Besides, aren't the parents supposed to be watching their kids in the first place? The only reason children are stupid enough to imitate what they see on TV is because nobody is telling them any better. There's no point to putting warnings on anything if nobody is going to follow them be it CDs, games, movies, or television. It's irritating to see Peter Griffin's face cut off by a black box.

When researching the guideline system on the FCC website, I noticed something interesting in their "For Kids Section": THEY PLAGIARIZED DORAEMON. Doraemon is practically a national icon over in Japan. He has over 20 movies, 2000 episodes on TV, and was the mascot for the postal service for a few years. Doraemon has also been running strong for over 4 decades. So it was interesting to see a government agency take one of the Doraemon designs, add a thumb, add a striped sweater, and rename him Broadband. What the name "broadband" has to do with children's television has evaded my sensibilities at the moment, so instead I'll reply with "WHAT THE HELL?!"

See for yourself:

Now normally, I'd show you guys the yellow Doraemon design, but I wanted to give you guys a good idea of his typical shape. Even then, you can see the striking similarities. On the FCC site, I was not only amazed by the ripoff, but of the overall poor quality of the image. Come on, if you're going to plagiarize something, at least make it look good.

I think the FCC deserves to get in trouble for once. So spread the word.