> And if GSN realizes that today's America is exposed to such bad role model as a game show host who kisses contestants, maybe the network will pull the plug on the Dawson reruns for good and never see the light of day again.

I don't really feel strongly about keeping old game show reruns going, but do you really think this would accomplish the goal you hope to achieve?

Expurgating history never did anybody any good. That show, artistically insignificant though it may be, is not insignificant as a time capsule of our cultural history. That it is shocking today makes it all the more important to remembering how social mores and attitudes have evolved over our recent past. Better to remember history than to forget it.

I don't really think children are going to use Richard Dawson as a role model today, out of place as it looks in the overall fabric of contemporary pop culture. And if the show inspires kids to ask questions, so much the better. Parents should be talking to their kids about the images and role models they see in the media anyway.

Your argument is not all that far removed from those who would censor Birth of a Nation (for its favorable portrayal of the KKK) and Triumph of the Will (Nazi propaganda) from the history of cinema. Certainly I sympathize with a desire to forget they ever happened. But selective memory doesn't help a society. Better to acknowledge that these films were made and seek to understand the power those images have and how we should process them today. I see that as a much more progressive attitude to take toward controversial media than trying to pretend they never happened.