The Soapbox
Losing Our Classic Cartoons
If you are a baby boomer, then you probably remember getting up early on saturday morning to eat cereal on the couch watching the Saturday morning cartoons. Mostly dominated by Warner Brothers ; Looney Tunes , Bugs Bunny , Road Runner , and Hanna Barbera ; Yogi Bear , Huckleberry Hound , These are the classic cartoons and are hilarious. However, over the years, these cartoons have been getting censored and hacked to pieces. Most recently in England a single viewer's complaint of a Tom & Jerry episode, Texas Tom, resulted in Copyright owners, Turner Broadcasting , to review thier catalog and censure scenes of caracters who are portrayed smoking. Wow! One complaint of cartoon caracters smoking being inappropriate to children viewers and the axes and hatchets come out. I watched these same programs as a child and yet I don't smoke.
Cartoon violence has been another focus of censorship. Remember Daffy Duck always getting shot by a gun and his bill spins around ending up in some unlikely position? Hilarious! But no more. Now the scene might show the gun barrel pointed at Daffy, cuts the blast and bill spin, and then jumps to daffy with a misplaced duck bill. Not funny and confusing. I watched hours of this type cartoon violence without becoming a psycho-killer. Why do they think kids are going to act on this behavior now?
Racial stereotyping is another area where old cartoon are being censored. In many episodes of Tom & Jerry, and Bugs Bunny scenes of explosions or other lead ins along with "black face" scenes are falling victum to the axe. When I was a kid the scenes were funny because we knew who Al Jolson was and the art work of the characters in black face was just funny. It never was taken as demeaning to any race. If anything it was percieved as a jab and a wink at previous actors antics.
Even worse than cutting these classic cartoon to ribbons is the burying of some other cartoon for thier "racial stereotyping", or other content. When was the last time you saw Speedy Gonzales? , Fat Albert? , Dudley Dooright? , Go-Go Gophers? What makes this censorship seem dumber is there are modern cartoons; Mucha Lucha, , Xiaolin Showdown , that are full of racial stereotyping. The stereotyping are not the funny parts, just necessary to the whole storyline of the cartoons. Will these cartoons quickly fall victum to the censors?
Other cartoons we may never see again are Under Dog , Super Chicken , Popeye , and why? Because, They all portray the protaganist using some substance to gain an advantage. Underdog has his "Underdog Super Energy Pill". Super Chicken drank "Super Sauce" from a martini glass. And Popeye, well, OK it was spinach, but it is still substance abuse.
Cartoon violence, racial stereotyping, substance abuse, all are excuses for the current owners, often not the original creators, to cut, censor or even stop showing our favorite cartoons from yesteryear. Sure you can argue that these subjects are not appropriate on shows aimed at small children. But what about us old farts? I still want to watch funny cartoons. And I would like to see them uncut. Can there not be a Cartoon Network for older kids?