Last week, families all across America sat down to watch It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown followed by You’re Not Elected, Charlie Brown, two animated classics about children experiencing the sort of disillusionment that will forge a lifetime of depression. Unfortunately, these valuable lessons were immediately interrupted by the cartoonish cavorting of Scandal, which opened with a scene in which Olivia Pope has a steamy dream about President “Fitz” Grant inspecting the sincerity of her pumpkin patch, while also getting a rock from Captain Jake Ballard. No doubt kids everywhere were instantly roused from their bored stupor at being forced to watch 40-year-old cartoons.
And while most parents likely saw this as a teachable moment, taking the opportunity to impart a message—perfectly timed for Election Day—about honoring the executive branch, others whose job it is to be offended did not. For them, the Parents Television Council has already issued the following angry statement on their behalf:
Wah wah wah-wah. Wah wah waaaah. Wah wah-wah wah wah waaah. Wah wah wah wah-waaah. Wah wah. Wah wah wah wah wah wah wah-wahhhhh. Wah-wah wah wah wah wah wah-wah. Wah wah wah-wah.
Adding to those comments, PTC president Tim Winter declared, “Shame on ABC for putting a peep show next to a playground,” decrying the “26 seconds, boom” it took to go from the end of the Charlie Brown special to Scandal. And as you can see in the video, it was indeed a mere 26 seconds from Sally angrily storming off at the end of You’re Not Elected, to Kerry Washington salaciously falling back on her pillow, where sex happens.
Just 26 seconds—filled only with a promo in which a booming announcer declares that a new episode of a show called Scandal starts right now; the appearance of a TV-14 logo warning that the show contains suggestive dialogue, strong language, intense sexual situations, and intense violence; and another, mere 15-20 seconds of Washington swimming laps to a sultry cover of “Summer Breeze”—and boom.
“Unless parents had the remote control in their hand, thumb on the button and aimed directly at the TV screen, they didn’t have a chance,” added Winter of these poor mothers and fathers, who would have otherwise had to make some great physical leap, like breaking from their children’s constant embrace.
The PTC has called on ABC to apologize for inadvertently introducing their kids to the grim realities of love and sex, when they just wanted to show them a fun cartoon about kids who have been abandoned by their parents to be awful to each other.