Dick Van Dyke is seething over the violence aimed at kids in movies and video games — and accuses greedy Hollywood bigwigs of ignoring the damage that big-screen blood and gore does to today’s youth.
The 91-year-old “Mary Poppins” star says today’s producers “are all in their 20s” and don’t “think they’re doing any harm” to kids with the violence and blood in movies.
“But we know that isn’t true,” says Dick. “All that rubs off on kids.”
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The star of TV’s classic family sitcom “The Dick Van Dyke Show” insists youngsters copy what they see on the screen. He recalls walking out of cowboy movies with his boyhood pals and “we’d come home playing cowboys. It does affect one.”
Now he fears “for my grandchildren” as movie and TV violence gets worse. He accuses producers of being greedy, saying: “It’s all about the money and pandering to the lowest possible taste. No one takes any responsibility.”
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Dick, who has a cameo in 2018’s “Mary Poppins Returns,” says Walt Disney would be horrified by the blood and gore in movies and games created for youngsters.
“Walt said kids like to be scared — but he did it with witches and evil queens. Now it’s blood and violence,” he says. Dick also slammed the gangster role models that kids follow.
“When I was a teenager, I modeled myself after the way Fred Astaire or Cary Grant dressed,” he recalls.
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“Now kids emulate street gangs. They’re picking the wrong role models.” Wed to second wife Arlene Silver, 45, for five years, he even accuses the Harry Potter films of going too far.
“They’re wonderfully entertaining,” he notes, “but they’re too scary.”
