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Good News Week

Colour-in 9-11 (GNW 25/5/09: monologue)

The American Federal Emergency Management Agency has removed a children’s colouring book from its website after complaints over pictures of the September 11 attacks. Frankly, it trivialises the memories of the dead to have the attacks reduced to outline form.

Because if kids are going to be exposed to terrorist attacks, it’s best that it’s in their full graphic horror. / Because the only images of the 9/11 attacks kids should be able to see are graphic full colour ones, accompanied by actual screams. You know, like on the NEWS.

It’s all very well to delete it from a colouring book, but do they really think kids won’t remember the SINGLE BIGGEST NEWS STORY OF THE LAST SIXTY YEARS?

The colouring book is to help children cope with disasters. And it’s important for kids to learn how to deal with death, doom and disaster. After all, the next ten years is going to be nothing but.

I thought it was a great idea. The colouring book gives kids something to do while their parents are incinerated.

They say they chose a colouring-in version of the 9/11 attacks because the dot-to-dot was just too hard.

But surely terrorist attacks are a part of life that children might be feeling genuine fear about? If you take realistic concerns like that out of the book, you might as well remove the Michael Jackson pictures too. / the picture of their parents being stabbed to death by chromers.

al-Qaeda will be leaving the picture in their colouring book. But don’t expect their children to stay inside the lines.

There’s a couple of reasons to remove the picture. It could be offensive, and with fire it’s also really hard to stay inside the lines.

And not only is it an offensive colouring-in picture, but 9-11 completely misleads kids about how to count.

What’s worse is it actually looks just like Osama’s original attack plan.

A picture in the book shows the second plane flying into the twin towers while a person watches it on TV and looks at the picture in a newspaper. See – it IS a conspiracy! / More evidence of the conspiracy theory!

Wow, the newspaper she’s reading has a picture of the plane hitting the second tower, when outside her window it hasn’t hit yet! Next time there’s a terrorist attack, I want to be reading that paper.

It’s clearly an insult to the memories of the 9/11 victims. For God’s sake, couldn’t you have gotten someone who could draw?

The kids can do a colouring-in, while the CIA continues trying to connect the dots.

If only Dubya had have read that book rather than “My Pet Goat”, we might have caught Osama!

They’re simultaneously banning the colouring-in book, but trying to make “Where’s Osama?” compulsory.

The illustrator doesn’t see what the big deal is. It was the same illustration she originally gave the President to colour in.

Not only do the authorities want the colouring-in book deleted, but any evidence that proves 9/11 was an inside job. / but any traces of the nanothermite discovered at the site that proves the planes actually had very little to do with it.

Rather than colouring in the 9-11 attacks, the Pentagon encourages all children to accept their black-and-white version.

Sure, the illustration may be in bad taste, but it’s still better than the waterboarding one. / than the one with the genital electrodes. / with the human pyramid.

Because nothing helps a child come to terms with terrorism better than colouring in.

Children can process negative emotions if it’s placed within a context that they are familiar with, like colouring in. The same philosophy also applies to the Osama plush-toy, the “My Little Palin” and the “Tickle-Me-Jackson”.

Of course if you give the colouring book to a September 11 orphan, just have ready a good stash of black crayons.

But really, you’d learn a lot more through the September 11 Lego kit.

But surely the perfect topic for kids to colour in is a fairy-story with made-up bad guys?

Oh, it’s such a cute widdle planey-waney! Having a big cwashy-wash and killing thousands-wousands!

They’re replacing the picture with a drawing of the Abu Ghraib photos, so at least it’s pro-American.

It’s a great book for kids, but not as good as the Black Plague join-the-dots.

It’s a great book for kids, but not as good as the “Where’s Wally?” Auschwitz edition. (He’s in the ovens!)

Of course, it’s not the only 9/11-related book for kids. There’s “The Very Naughty Aeroplanes”, “The Little Terrorist That Could”, and “By Acting So Unilaterally In Areas Of Foreign Policy, America Has Brought This Upon Itself”. It’s a pop-up!

New nursery rhymes:

“Twin Towers are falling down, falling down, falling down. Twin Towers are falling down, al Qai-ida.”

“There’s a hole in the towers, Osama, Osama, there’s a hole in the towers, Osama, jihad.”

(arms outstetched)
“Up in the air I fly, zoom zoom a zooma zoom zoom,
into the towers I fly, zoom zoom a zooma zoom zoom,
zoooooom, zooooom, zoom zoom a zoom zooma zoom zoom, zoooooom, zoooooom, zoom zooma zoom CRASH.”

By Wok and Mat

Warwick Holt and Mat Blackwell are long-time writing partners, who created the mega-award winning web series Bruce, and wrote loads of jokes for TV shows including Good News Week, The Sideshow and The Glass House. Several years of their raw material for those shows is posted right here on this blog.

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