Subliminal Messages (or "Acting on Principle")

About Dr. Dobson's problems with SpongeBob:

It's rather unfortunate, if you ask me, and one has to wonder if Mr. Dobson isn't getting a little crochety as he ages.

I think Dobson's claim is silly. I'm not a psychologist, but I thought we'd given up on the subliminal messages hype a long time ago, back in the days when we tired of the "backward masking" issue (that is, the recording of messages that can be played when a record is spun backwards). Thinking back on my childhood, I didn't notice what type of relationship Ernie and Bert had (I suppose that's why they're subliminal messages)--I just thought Ernie's laugh was funny, and I liked how Bert furrowed his brow when Ernie annoyed him. Even when I watched a (at the time) 'no-no' adult TV show (such as "The Golden Girls"), most of the sexual innuendo was completely beyond me, or I just wasn't interested.

[via The Eagle and Child]