After a woman made a complaint to media regulator Ofcam about two Tom and Jerry cartoons with scenes containing smoking, Turner Broadcasting decided to search through its entire catalog of classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons to edit out scenes with smoking characters - unless the smoking character is a villain.

The cartoons under investigation include Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo. Spokesman for Turner in Europe Yinka Akindele said scenes with smoking villains would not necessarily be edited.

The only scenes that will be modified are ones "where smoking could be deemed to be cool or glamorized," Akindele tells Reuters. "This is a voluntary step we've taken in light of the changing times."

Ofcom says it realizes smoking was generally more acceptable at the time cartoons were made - in the 1940s, '50s and '60s. However, the threshold for including such scenes should be high when most of the viewers are young, Ofcam argues. The woman who made the complaint saw the Tom and Jerry cartoons on the Boomerang channel, part of Turner Broadcasting. About 56 percent of the people who watch Boomerang are between the ages of four and 14.

Akindele says, "These are historic cartoons, they were made well over 50 years ago in a different time and different place. Our audience is children and we don't want to be irresponsible."