Today, I was shopping at K-mart, looking for clothes for the kids. There, I saw a collection of caps for girls.

The first one that caught my eye had Tweety's head on it with a mean look on his face. Behind his head hung two bones, so the image became a Tweety & Crossbones. Being a fan of Loony Tunes for at least 30 years, this depiction bothered me. Granted, Tweety always had a sadistic streak. The early Tweety cartoons included the statement, "Aww, da poor puddy tat faw down and go BOOM!" Yet at the same time, he always retained the veneer of a "tweet widdw birdie." That hat scraped off that veneer, and while it bore a superficial resemblance to Sylvester's favorite snack, that was no Tweety.

On the opposite side of the rack, I found a Supergirl cap. It had the Superman S, surrounded by flowers...and two skull and crossbones designs. HUH?! Yeah. They were small, but they were there. So what does a skull and crossbones have to do with Superman?

It's all about the green. Kryptonite, money, it's all the same.

You see, as angry as I am with Warner Brothers for renting out their characters to the highest bidder instead of making sure they're treated with the respect you'd give to a 70-year-old icon, I question whether I can blame them. Stockholders don't care about keeping characters poor. They just want the stock to do well. That's why they bought the stock.

At the same time, these uses of the property can smudge the image of the character to the point that people stop associating Superman with the "big blue Boy Scout" until the money becomes the verdant meteorite that eventually kills him more finally than any villain ever dreamed. The same goes for Looney Tunes and all of the Warner licenses.

Maybe I'm just an ornery, all-too-geeky purist, but I'm tired of seeing my heroes and sources of childhood happiness twisted to make a buck. Satire is one thing--this is just a corporate mash-up.

What do you think?