In the midst of the cocaine furor, in 1990 they thought that the message should be clearer. So they called the Ninja Turtles

Who better than a large group of television animation stars to warn the creatures addicted to the cathode tube of the dangers of drugs (those not related to the cathode tube). This happened in 1990, in a clash of animated titans that had international reach: here we saw it on Antena 3 and presented by the famous Reina Sofía. How and why was this firefighter idea born?

Be good. There was something that the cartoons of the eighties were very good at, and that was preaching. We all remember the taglines that Mattel added to the ‘He-Man and the Masters of the Universe‘ to cushion accusations of excessive violence and in which the heroes reminded the kids to brush their teeth and listen to their elders, unless that elder was a stranger who told them to get in his car.

And while here a generation was duly seasoned by the messages of disturbing anti-capitalist terrorism of the Electroduendes, in the United States they brought together successful cartoon characters of the time so that the kids could say no to drugs.

To the rescue. ‘Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue’ is a 1990 half-hour animated special focused on drug prevention, which brought together popular characters from several animated series (ten in total: the Smurfs, ALF, Garfield, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Winnie from Pooh, the Little Ones, Slimer from ‘The Real Ghostbusters’, some Looney Tunes, a Turtle Ninja and Donald’s nephews from ‘DuckTales’). The plot revolves around a teenager who uses marijuana and puts his younger sister at risk due to his addiction. Cartoon characters come to life for emergency intervention.

Important financing. The production was financed by McDonald’s and its children’s charity Ronald McDonald Foundation. The White House supported the invention with an introduction by President George HW Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush, something that would be repeated in different countries with different presenters. The four major American television networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) collaborated to broadcast it and the franchise owners gave up the rights for a good cause. It was produced by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and animated in Taiwan (because shit is shit) by the very prolific Wang Film Productions.

To end the avalanche of stars, Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, at the time on the crest of the wave thanks to their soundtrack for ‘The Little Mermaid’ just a year earlier, composed an original song, ‘Wonderful Ways to Say No‘.

In Spain, the queen. The version broadcast in Spanish-speaking countries was called ‘Cartoon stars to the rescue.’ In Spain It was broadcast by all television networks, but at different times: La Primera, the international channel, Antena 3, regional channels with programming in Spanish (Canal Sur, Telemadrid, TVG, ETB-2 and Canal Nou), Tele 5 and Canal+. There were also various presenters: in Mexico, President Carlos Salinas; in Chile, the first lady Marta Larraechea; and in Spain, Queen Sofía, at that time very involved in drug prevention campaigns and protection of the rights of minors.

Avoid drugs. Since Nixon got muddied in the early seventies in a interested war on drugsthere have been relentless educational campaigns aimed at removing glamor and providing tools so that the youngest people do not fall into addictions. Often sinning naivety and Manichaeism (and this cartoon special has plenty of both), many of its slogans have remained embedded in pop culture: ‘Just say no‘, ‘This is your brain in drugs‘… and in Spain the legendary “Avoid drugs” (which at the very least generated a great song by Esteban Light) and “Say no to drugs“, with cocaine ray worm spot included.

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