I am the mom of a 12-year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy. They have been huge fans of Nickelodeon TV programming throughout their childhoods. We even took them to the Nick Hotel in Florida, where we stayed in a SpongeBob SquarePants family suite. But enough is enough.
Like disgusted parents across the country, I put my foot down and am standing up for decency: No more Nick.
This weekend, the Viacom-owned children's network will debut a reboot of the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" TV series. One of the lead characters (Leonardo) will be voiced by actor Jason Biggs. On Aug. 29, Biggs published vile, lewd messages on his public Twitter account attacking the wives of the GOP presidential ticket during the Republican National Convention.
The Nickelodeon TV star joked about digitally sodomizing GOP Rep. Paul Ryan's wife, Janna Ryan, and sexually degraded Mitt Romney's wife, Ann Romney, by referring to her body parts in a similar pornographic manner. He also mocked Christians and their faith.
"Clint Eastwood talking to a non-responsive stool sorta sums up Christianity in a nutshell, huh Republicans?" Biggs wrote.
Biggs then publicly re-tweeted (shared) his actress wife, Jenny Mollen's, own misogynist jab at Janna Ryan: "People are cheering off screen because Janna Ryan is showing her tits."
Biggs cravenly attempted to erase the evidence by deleting his X-rated tweets without apology or acknowledgment. But the Internet is forever. My editors at twitchy.com, the conservative Twitter curation and aggregation site, preserved the twisted messages and pressed Nickelodeon for corporate accountability.
On Sept. 1, Nickelodeon ignored swelling parental outrage over Biggs' shocking vulgarity. Instead, the network promoted Biggs' public Twitter account on two of its official social media outlets. The "@TMNTMaster" account run by the network promotes "all things Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle" and has more than 2,500 followers — including parents and children. The "@NickelodeonTV" account has nearly 700,000 followers — including parents and children.
Both official Nickelodeon accounts, which have been peddling the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle" program debut with a nonstop ad blitz rivaling a presidential campaign, encouraged fans to check out "@jasonbiggs" — making access to Biggs' filth just a click away.
Biggs had littered his public Twitter timeline with profane anatomical references, incest jokes, oral sex, dental dams, sexual aids, toilet photos, more digital penetration jokes, and creepy jokes from his wife about helping himself to "eighth grader (deleted)" at the Nickelodeon Teen Choice Awards.
Entertainment media remained silent about the controversy.
But cable news anchor (and mother of two) Megyn Kelly broke the stone wall on her Fox News show on Sept. 4. Unable to quote the foul language on her program, she let viewers know that Biggs' tweets were "really disturbing, vile and hateful."
Finally forced to respond, Nickelodeon issued a toothless statement: "The offensive comments made by Jason Biggs last week on his personal Twitter account do not reflect our company's views or values, and we condemn them. Nickelodeon does not support or condone the use of graphic or vulgar language on any of our platforms. It was our mistake to link from our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Twitter feed to Jason's personal Twitter account, and we quickly corrected our error. We also insisted Jason use better judgment and discretion in public communications while affiliated with our brand."
Like an out-of-control brat who knows his parents are pushovers, the impudent Biggs ignored the wrist slap. Last week, as the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" promos saturated the airwaves and Internet, Biggs was tweeting about an "ambien sex fest" and "ejaculant soaked tanktop."
Notified by parents about Biggs' not-safe-for-kids spewage, the Colorado Rockies Major League Baseball team canceled a scheduled family-friendly promotion of "Nickelodeon Day."
"The Colorado Rockies have communicated to the Nickelodeon Network that we will not be doing a promotion in the 2012 season," the team announced. "They have been a good partner to us, and Jason Biggs is certainly not part of that partnership," Rockies vice president of communications, Jay Alves, told twitchy.com.
With the exception of the Rockies, no other major partner or advertiser has taken action to disassociate from Biggs. Nick advertiser Sears disavowed Biggs' comments, but did not pull its ads. General Mills, Kellogg's, Target and Kraft Foods are all standing with the network.
Nickelodeon has the nerve to boast about its many "corporate social responsibility" campaigns, including a project encouraging children to stand up to bullies. But when confronted with a garbage-spewing, misogynistic cyberbully within its own lucrative kiddie TV lineup, Nickelodeon is a craven enabler.
Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks and Cronies" (Regnery 2010). Her email address is malkinblog@gmail.com.
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