Quote - Or the only reason why ice cream is so popular is because a lot of companies manufacture ice cream.  So -- according to this line of reasoning -- if only more companies would produce brussel sprouts -- THEN brussel sprouts would suddenly drastically increase in popularity over chocolate and ice cream.

I never said it happens overnight, but it is the sort of cycle that you drift into and then it becomes self sustaining. To use your brussel sprout analogy, if they started hyping and pushing brussel sprouts everyday, you can bet they could sell them like chocolate. I mean if they can sell worthless people like Paris Hilton to the public, brussel sprouts are a much easier subject :)

Quote - But even granting all of that -- Disney is a much, much bigger company than either Playboy, Inc. or Larry Flynt's outfit.

Except that disney has not made a hit CG animated movie in decades. The only profit they have made from animation is by releasing Pixar movies and their theme parks. Which is why they recently handed large parts of their animation section to pixar hotshots to rebuild.

Also note i wasn't talking about porn here. Not being family friendly doesn't automatically make something pornographic you know. There are plenty of mature subjects you can tackle, without ever showing a boob or a butt. Look at Miyazaki's amazing animations like Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke or Nausicaa to see brilliant examples. Or Iron giant or Grave of the Fireflies. They are anime, but none of them have any sexual content. Not even a kiss. But they deal with loss and war and love and pain. Subjects which you cant always share with kids, but which even non horny adults can enjoy.

Of course i don't really expect the hollywood which is making this:

(Clicky...)

...to change it's mind, but as long as we have our japanese brethren to produce whatever wonderful (and yes even perverted) stuff they want, we can at least have a wide variety to choose from.