You're reading: Russian TV cartoon villain gets to keep smoking

MOSCOW — He's been battered and humiliated for more than 40 years, but the wolf in a classic Russian animated cartoon has skirted the indignity of having to drop his smoking habit.

Russian media had wondered if a law
designed to protect children that takes effect Saturday could require TV
producers to extensively cut episodes of the cartoon “Nu Pogodi”
because the villainous wolf is a heavy smoker.

The law says material deemed harmful to children can be broadcast only from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m.

But
the vice president of the Russian Academy of Television, Alexander
Mitroshenkov, said Thursday that he had talked with many legislators and
officials and there was an agreement that “we won’t cut anything, not
one cigarette.”

There was no word if the wolf was relieved.