MISC : Angry Email from Ruth Summers, "Concerned" Parent

Dear Mr. Lazlo,

My name is Ruth Summers and I am writing this email in hopes that you will listen to reason and please take your aweful website down immediately. I suppose an ongoing series like Morris the Human Lizard, a cartoon character that urinates off the ledge of tall buildings over the unsuspecting crowd below, or breaks into a morgue to anally rape dead corpses might seem crudely humorous to people like yourself, but to sensible, wholesome Americans like me, its downright offensive, sickening, and perverted.

Moreover, such cartoons provide a horrible influence on children and serve no redeeming quality whatsoever. What kinds of lessons are children supposed to learn from a cartoon about some out-of-control lizard that decides—for reasons I can't even begin to comprehend—to bit off half of a baby's face and lick the blood clean from the glistening skull. Yet here you are, posting such wretched cartoons where a child could easily access it, on the world wide web. Neil, my seven-year-old son—upon seeing your filth—stole a baby from a woman's stroller just last week and actually tried to bite the poor baby's head off while I was busy flirting with the cashier at Stop'n'Shop. Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was? I must have looked like the world's worst mother.

I'm not a bad parent, though, because I'm not the one who put those evil ideas into Neil's head, Lazlo, you did through your crummy website. How am I supposed to rely and trust the Internet and television to properly raise my children when scumbags like you are putting sick cartoons like Morris the Human Lizard online to corrupt our youth?

I'm a single mom of two boys (my husband ran off three years ago, the bastard) just trying my best to raise two kids—Neil, my seven-year-old, and Johh, my three-year-old. Its hard enough working two jobs, then hanging out at sleazy bars and nightclubs with my friends and sleeping around the neighborhood at night. I just don't have time to watch my children, dicipline them, raise them properly or teach them the difference between reality and fiction, let alone the difference between right and wrong. And I shouldn't have to explain to Neil that you shouldn't be tipping over portable toilets when someone else is using them, because that's something that he never should have been exposed to in the first place.

I'll admit that Neil was a little bit out of control even before he found your website. He is a terror, who is always getting in trouble at school, getting suspended, getting in trouble with the police, and hanging around bad people. But if you think I'm going to blame myself for him always being out of control, you're absolutely insane, because it is not my fault at all. Just because I don't watch my kids very closely, and am never there for them, and sometimes feel like I would rather get drunk and knocked up than so much as look at them, doesn't mean I'm a bad parent. Its your fault for corrupting my son. You and all those violent TV shows he's always watching. Hey look, I already gave birth to him. Its up to society now to raise him properly, and that means providing only good influences and wholesome websites and TV shows. That's where you come in, Mr. Lazlo, and I find it highly irresponsible of you to even consider posting vulgar cartoons online like Morris the Human Lizard.

I was checking out your site, seeing the kind of vulgar material Neil was looking through for the past three months while I left him alone and unnattended online, working my ass off and then getting laid by some stranger who I would forget about the next day, and you have no idea how shocked and offended I was. Watching your cartoons has got to be the single worst experience of my entire life. You have no idea how miserable it was for me, clicking on link after link to your reprehensible cartoons, sitting there for three hours while I watched every last cartoon, absolutely appalled by what I saw. Not only that, but while I was watching the cartoons, engrossed in them and thoroughly sickened, John, my three-year-old son, ran outside naked in the middle of winter, when the snow was up to his ankles, and nearly froze to death. He's lucky to be alive. Unfortunately, while he was out there, and I was unable to get him back in because I was too busy watching your offensive cartoons, he wound up with a bad case of frostbite and now has gangrene on both his feet and will have to have them amputated. And you can expect a lawsuit from that, because if it weren't for you and your lousy site, I might have been able to find my son on time, or prevented him from walking outside in the first place, and the poor thing would still be able to keep his feet.

And don't you dare think that you can hide behind those silly disclaimers of yours that state that your site is not in any way intended or appropriate for children and that it is geared towards adults only, because that's just not going to cut it. I'm sorry, but making it a point to have your site blocked by every major web filtration software isn't good enough. Some parents—like me—just don't want to be bothered with that stuff. Who has time? Who wants to deal with installing such software? I certainly don't.

I am asking you for the last time, please take your site down, so it won't corrupt anymore precious children. Its attrocious that you would put up a site and post cartoons such as Morris the Human Lizard. If you have any decency left within your soul, please do the right thing and tear this entire site down. If you don't, I'm afraid I'll have to get a court order forcing you to do so, and if I have to do that, I'll sue you for everything you've got. Please understand, Mr. Lazlo, I'm willing to do everything in my power to make sure this site comes down. I will work night and day, ignoring my children even more than I do now, if it means the end of this site. Don't test me, because you have no idea how far I'm willing to go to get my ways. Give up while you still can, because one way or another, your time of corrupting our youth is over.

Sincerely,
Ruth Summers