Children Dying Needless in Doha

VIOLENCE in cartoons is causing children to drop massive anvils on each others' heads, stockpile TNT or mess around with huge magnets, a new report has warned.

The study also recommends the Acme corporation withdraws a number of products from sale immediately, including its big round black bombs with BOMB written on them and long rope fuses that go out a lot.

Huda Al Kuwari, of Qatar University, said: "Our research shows a worrying increase in children trying to ambush each other with elaborate traps involving boulders, detonators and seige catapults.

"These invariably backfire, leaving the children with concertina-ed bodies, singed fur or squashed flat as a pancake for a few seconds before they scuttle off on their now-stunted legs, which make a strange tinkly sound."

Additionally, parents' groups have recommended that cartoon violence be more realistic to deter children from emulating talking animals.

A raging South Asian for Parents Against Bad Things said: "When Wile E Coyote's 'Instant Leg Muscle Vitamins' give him enormous lower limb strength and he powers straight off a high ledge into a ravine, he returns unscathed in the following scene.

"Surely we should see his broken, bloodied body at the bottom of the cliff, twitching slightly as the life ebbs out of it? It's vital that children learn about the perils of gravity and the consequences of Instant Leg Muscle vitamin abuse."

A spokesperson for the Federation of Haunted Castle Caretakers said it supported the campaign for greater realism in cartoons: "Our members should be able to go about their work without being labelled 'skull-faced phantoms' by groups of pesky kids and their anthropomorphic canine companions."

He added: "Not that it's interfering with our dastardly plans or anything."