Common Sense Note

Parents need to know that this isn't exactly a motivational tool if you want your kids to get into music (especially piano-playing). There's a dramatization of the now rather archaic (not to mention unhygienic) "blood brothers" kid ritual. Though it seems ridiculous that young kids could be frightened by Seuss whimsies, Stephen King (!) claimed he was terrified by one of the books -- so there. Maybe the executioner here is the scariest character, but he does nothing except sing and work an elevator to the dungeon. Though it precedes the MPAA rating system, some video versions carry a "G."

Sexual Content

Not applicable.

Violence

An order of execution by "disintegration," and a singing executioner vocalizes about various tortures, but the worst we see onscreen is a kick in the shins (and two characters who evidently die just because their bizarre beard is trimmed). A threatened explosion.

Language

Not applicable

Social Behavior

Bart is just a regular kid who would like to play ball and with his dog; he's not angelic and he's not Bart Simpson either. There's a faint sense of old-school thought about his widowed single mom; she ought to be married, lest she fall victim to someone like Dr. T.

Consumerism

Not applicable

Drugs / Tobacco / Alcohol

Zabladowsky gets up the nerve to fight the twin guards by imbibing "pickle juice," a Seussian metaphor for alcohol.