Classic Russian TV cartoon villain – the wolf – can keep smoking, despite new children’s law

MOSCOW – He’s been battered and humiliated for more than 40 years, but the wolf in a classic Russian animated cartoon has skirted the indignity of having to drop his smoking habit.

Russian media had wondered if a law designed to protect children that takes effect Saturday could require TV producers to extensively cut episodes of the cartoon “Nu Pogodi” because the villainous wolf is a heavy smoker.

The law says material deemed harmful to children can be broadcast only from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m.

But the vice-president of the Russian Academy of Television, Alexander Mitroshenkov, said Thursday that he had talked with many legislators and officials and there was an agreement that “we won’t cut anything, not one cigarette.”

There was no word if the wolf was relieved.