Those who complain about the Soviet censorship should revise their opinion. The VGTRK, one of the State-owned Russian TV channels, has just mentioned they may stop screening a famous Soviet cartoon to children.

      "Nu, Pogodi!" (I'll Get You!), the much-loved and cherished achievement of Soviet animation school, is a comic strip about the Wolf (the bad guy) and the Hare (the good guy). It was directed by Vyacheslav Kotyonochkin and produced at the Soyuzmultfilm studio in Moscow between 1969 and 1986. The plot follows the Wolf (Volk) trying to catch the Hare (Zayats). The voices were provided by Anatoly Papanov (Wolf) and Nadezhda Rumyantseva (Hare), and episodes contained parodies of Soviet and Western singers and bands, including The Kinks, The Beatles, and Vladimir Vysotsky. However, being the bad guy, occasionally the Wolf would smoke a cigarette, and this reportedly led the TV bosses to reconsider the status of the cartoon - it is now feared to be too adult for kids.

      The reconsideration comes as a reaction to the law "On protecting children from information that causes harm to their health and development" ratified in 2011 and about to come into force as of September 1, 2012. According to the law, children may not be exposed to TV programmes, films, cartoons, and publications that contain violence, sexual content, foul language, and references to smoking, drug abuse, alcohol, etc. The law came as a very belated reaction to the TV bacchanalia of 1990s and 2000s when children could see and hear just about anything on TV. The smoking Wolf is now regarded a threat to those kids who may wish to follow in his footsteps.

      The Russian media watchdog, Roscomnadzor, also commented on this report, stating that the cartoon is an integral part of Russian culture, including children's animation, and hence the committee had no intention of banning it from Russian TV, let alone subjecting the TV channels to a fine for screening it.

      The VGTRK acknowledged that they were currently at the stage of compiling a list of potentially offensive programmes that may have to be screened after 9pm. Nu, Pogodi! may still be saved from the watchful eye of censors.

      Below is the episode 5 of the series, exactly the one in which the Wolf is smoking his cigarette from minute one.