Cartoon characters have taken a pummelling by the Christian right recently for their supposed promotion of the homosexual lifestyle. SpongeBob SquarePants has been ridiculed for both chronic hand-holding with his male friend Patrick and for joining with other cartoon characters in singing "We Are Family" for a school video that accusers contend promotes the "homosexual agenda." Buster the Bunny was recently busted trying to visit a lesbian couple in Vermont on his public television show. And Marge Simpson's sister, Patty Bouvier, recently married her lesbian lover on "The Simpsons." Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, American Idle has uncovered an ongoing investigation of cartoon characters that dates back to the 1930s, with overseers such as J. Edgar Hoover, Sen. Joe McCarthy, Ed Meese, and John Ashcroft monitoring supposed subversive activities by some of the most-beloved children's entertainment figures. What follows may be shocking, and you may never look at your favorite cartoon characters the same way again. We ask that children not view anymore of this web page, for sanity's sake.

Popeye the Sailor
Case opened: 1933; Case closed: 1984
Don't ask, don't tell was around long before Bill Clinton was even born. Although Popeye had a brief fling with Betty Boop, and soon after became the David Gest to Olive Oyl's Liza Minnelli, J. Edgar Hoover launched the very first investigation of a cartoon in 1933, initially over his concern about conduct unbecoming a member of the military. His suspicions of Popeye's personal life ignited when the spinach-eater seemed to have more physical contact with possible "bear" Bluto than with Olive, who would later acquire a child without the coital assistance of Popeye. Memos of Popeye's transfers to various National Guard units in Texas and Alabama were deemed phony, thus, a complete record of his military service has never been compiled.

Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo
Case opened: 1958; Case closed: 1994
The Hanna-Barbera company has been closely watched since the 1950s. HB, more than any other animation house, used the most characters with the vaguest sexual orientation. Lots of bottomless males, clothed only in bowties and neckties. Yogi shared a cave in Jellystone Park with his diminutive sidekick, Boo-Boo, and, as was the case across the country during that era, would chronically defy authority and/or "the establishment," in this case Ranger Smith. Was Yogi's knack for stealing pic-a-nic baskets an effort to sate his post-homosexual-sex appetite? The FBI never found out and closed the file on Yogi following his possible conversion to a more wholesome lifestyle in the early Nineties as depicted in "Yogi the Easter Bear."

Snagglepuss
Case opened: 1959; Case closed: 1985
The file on another Hanna-Barbera player, Snagglepuss, is probably the largest of any cartoon character. Snagglepuss began his career as a sheep-stealing mountain lion in Quick Draw McGraw cartoons, and speculation as to what he did with those sheep filled hundreds of pages alone. He also appeared in cartoons with Augie Dogg and Doggie Daddy, rumored to have been a wealthy older dog and his "cabana boy," as it were. Snagglepuss' "exit, stage left" catchphrase clearly put him in the camp of theater-folk. Secret memos confirm Hoover ordered a certain Major Minor, from a special ops unit called The Adventure Club, to "bag" Snagglepuss, but was always unsuccessful. Huckleberry Hound was also under surveillance, for a period of eight years, but no sexual relationship between he and Snagglepuss could be proven.

Tennessee Tuxedo and Chumley the Walrus
Case opened: 1963; Case closed: 1966
While Tennessee and Chumley raised alarms initially due to the possibly-gay naked-except-for-neckwear dynamic they both shared, the FBI showed little concern as long as they were safely behind bars at the Megopolis Zoo, under the watchful eye of Stanley Livingston and Phineas J. Whoopee, who used an animated chalkboard as a re-education tool.

The Great Gazoo
Case opened: 1964; Case closed: 1966
Was the Great Gazoo the original Queer Eye to Neanderthal straight guys Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble? This spirited little alien began dropping in on the Stone Age clods during the last two years The Flintstones were broadcast, constantly giving the hopeless hubbies advice while exhibiting a certain puckish flair and a penchant for wearing green tights. At the show's end the Great Gazoo was seen in public no more and the file was officially closed.

Velma Dinkley
Case opened: 1969; Case closed: N/A
The red flag went up as soon as Velma and her hippie friends came on the scene in the late 1960s. Shaggy: Clearly a stoner who had imaginary conversations with his Great Dane, Scooby-Do. Saucy minx Daphne: A lipstick lesbian? And neckerchief-wearing Fred: Neckerchief-wearer. They caused quite a stir within the top ranks of the FBI. Was their mystery-solving and crime-fighting merely a ruse to lure people into accepting homosexuals into these hetero-dominated vocational fields? While the file on Velma was dormant for quite some time, her recent reappearance in a shampoo commercial with Wilma Flintstone, Jane Jetson, and others, has prompted FBI Director Robert Mueller to reassign four agents to her case.