Drawn and Quartered's Belated Christmas Spectacular -- Episode #2: The Fright Before Christmas (String Light Quartet)

Director(s): Friz Freleng

Summary: On Christmas Eve, The Tasmanian Devil escapes being cargo on a plane and lands outside of Santa Claus’ house at the North Pole, takes his clothes, and steals his sleigh. And wouldn’t you know it? His first stop is at Bugs Bunny’s house, where Bugs plays along with Taz being Santa so as not to disillusion his nephew, Clyde (who’s still a kid in 1979, despite seeing him before in 1951’s “His Hare-Raising Tale” and 1955’s “Yankee Doodle Bugs”).

Fun Facts:

• This is actually part of a late 1970s TV special called Bugs Bunny’s Looney Christmas Tales, which also included “Bugs Bunny’s Christmas Carol” (also directed by Friz Freleng) and “Freeze Frame” (the first Chuck Jones-directed Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner short since 1964’s “War and Pieces”). I remember seeing all three of these as individual shorts when channels like ABC, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network had the rights to air WB shorts (mostly they were reserved for Christmas episodes).
• This is the first (and only) time Friz Freleng directed a Bugs Bunny vs. Taz cartoon. Robert McKimson (the man behind the only five Bugs/Taz cartoons that were released during the Golden Age of Warner Bros cartoons) died in 1977 (he had a heart attack while having lunch with Friz, coincidentally. What’s worse is that Robert McKimson was told by his doctor that he had a clean bill of health and most likely live to be 100, just like his father).
• This is the first time in ten years (1969 vs. 1979) that a new Warner Bros short appeared in any form of media (in this case, television. A new, theatrical WB short wouldn’t come until 1987 with “The Duxorcist”).

The Channel(s): ABC

Part(s) Edited: You’d think any Warner Bros shorts made after the Golden Age (and some of the downhill years between 1965 and 1969) would finally be safe to air for families, but…not in this case. ABC’s version (which I remember seeing a lot in the 1990s in December) cut some of the scene of Bugs naming off everything his nephew, Clyde, wants for Christmas to remove Taz eating Christmas bulbs (and getting sick from a green one that’s “not ripe,” according to Bugs) and electrifying himself by chewing on a string of Christmas lights.

While the short itself now has a title card and the beginning and ending concentric circles tacked on, I don’t count that as a censorship cut or even an edit for syndication. This is more of a reformatting, because, as mentioned before, this was the last ten minutes of a TV special that was turned into an individual short.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): As the video explains, the only thing that grinds my gears about this is the fact that there’s a lot of scenes gone within a seven-minute time frame. Not enough to reduce the cartoon to nothing, but enough to notice, judging by the fact that Bugs’ comically long list from his nephew would include more things than what he says in the edited version.

Video Comparison: Back and more polished than ever. My goal is to make these comparison videos similar to how this YouTube series called “Cutting Edge” (which also does compare and contrast videos showing how live-action movies get censored in the United Kingdom [though there are episodes showing how the United States and Australia have censored movies]) does it:

Availability Uncut: This actually has a good run on home media, mostly as part of Bugs Bunny’s Looney Christmas Tales TV special. If you want to see “The Fright Before Christmas” in that format (as well as seeing “Bugs Bunny’s Christmas Carol” and “Freeze Frame”), then your best bets are:

• The 1990 VHS release of Bugs Bunny’s Looney Christmas Tales
• Volume 5 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set (disc 4, 2007)
• The 2018 DVD release of Bugs Bunny’s Looney Christmas Tales

If you want to see it as a short without “Bugs Bunny’s Christmas Carol” and “Freeze Frame” (with or without the opening or closing rings), then these are the physical media choices for you:

• Christmas Looney Tunes (VHS)
• Stars of Space Jam: Tasmanian Devil (VHS [standalone and as part of a double feature VHS, which includes the actual 1996 movie Space Jam], the Japanese laser disc, and DVD. The DVD version -- both the standalone and the repackaged version as part of the Stars of Space Jam Collection, volume 1 – doesn’t have the beginning or closing rings and is shown with the act three bridging sequence and end credits from Bugs Bunny’s Looney Christmas Tales)
• Volume 6 of the Looney Tunes Special Bumper Collection (VHS)
• Looney Tunes Presents: Taz’s Jungle Jams (VHS)
• Christmas Collection Looney Tunes (VHS)
• Looney Tunes Platinum Collection [Blu-ray version only]  (volume 1, disc three, unrestored version)

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: No digital downloads (by which I mean Amazon Prime Video and iTunes), but it was on HBO Max (from 2020 to 2022, then returned from 2024 to 2025 when it was called “Max”) and is one of the 700 to 800 Warner Bros shorts available for free on Tubi.

‘Til next time, Stay Looney, and Be Merrie.

Hamateur Night (I'm OK, You're UK)

 

Director(s): Tex Avery

Summary: A local theater holds an amateur night, where the acts stink out loud and only the best of the worst can win it (so...it’s an updated version of Into Your Dance from 1935). All the while, Egghead keeps interrupting with his rendition of “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain When She Comes” and getting pulled by the “get off the stage” hook that is a trope on cartoons like this (I know a more-or-less modern version of this is The Sandman [a man dressed as a circus clown] sweeping off bad acts with a push broom on episodes of Showtime at the Apollo).

Fun Facts:

- The Four Daughters mentioned in the marquee gag at the beginning is a real movie. It’s a 1938 romantic drama about a charming, young stranger and his bitter, cynical composer friend upending the lives and loves of a happy, musical family. The four daughters were played by Gail Page and The Lane Sisters (Priscilla, Rosemary, and Lola). 

- Phillip Kramer, a radio comedian known for his work on the radio show, The Grouch Club, was the voice of the canine emcee in this short.

- This cartoon premiered alongside the feature film, They Made Me a Criminal, starring John Garfield, Claude Rains, and a group of New York City Broadway actors known as The Dead End Kids (and also known as The East Side Boys, The Tough Little Guys, and The Bowery Boys). It was also directed by Busby Berkeley, who is known more for doing musical films featuring elaborate, geometric set pieces and beautiful showgirls on parade. You probably have heard of some of them: 42nd Street, Footlight Parade, Gold Diggers of 1933, Dames, and Fashions of 1934.

The Channel(s): BBC (as part of Rolf Harris Cartoon Time)

Part(s) Edited: Hurray, it’s yet another edit done for time/more commercials rather than for objectionable content (though, considering that the United Kingdom is stricter in what’s appropriate for children’s/family audiences than the United States is, an argument can be made that the “Four Daughters with Selected Shorts” pun could be considered risqué, but that’s by American standards, not UK). When this cartoon aired on the BBC’s show Rolf Harris Cartoon Time (now considered problematic since the show’s host was later outed to be a paedophile [spelling it the British way this time around. I know this isn’t the American way]), the beginning with the Four Daughters marquee and the band warming up was cut, going straight from the titles to the canine-looking host introducing the show and Egghead twice interrupting with “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain” before getting the hook…twice.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): Like many edited for syndication cuts before it, just the fact that there’s nothing about the cut that would warrant the scene being cut other than “We need to trim this for time.” On top of that, cutting it so that way it starts with the host introducing the show doesn’t make or break the scene. Viewers will still know (by virtue of the title and what the new opening scene is) what’s going on. Then there’s the fact that Swami River’s act was never cut on UK TV, despite the UK having rules against showing content that could be insensitive to minority audiences, and that does include outdated, stereotypical depictions of racial and ethnic groups that were once okay to show, but now aren’t. If HBO Max in the U.S. could pull “Hamateur Night” for that reason (meanwhile, MeTV didn’t censor that scene and Tubi actually showed the cartoon, despite not airing many WB shorts with racial and ethnic stereotypes and showing “Believe It or Else” with edits – stay tuned for that one), then what exactly was stopping the UK from doing the same?

Video Comparison: 

Availability Uncut: Bad news: its physical media history doesn’t look too good. It was on the Golden Age of Looney Tunes laser disc and VHS in the early 1990s (both on volumes centered around Tex Avery’s best work at Termite Terrace) and didn’t get another release until 2023, where it appeared on the second volume of the Looney Tunes Collector’s Choice set, as well as the repackaged version from 2024 that includes all four volumes. Good news: it’s a public domain short (has been since 1967), so you can watch it on YouTube, other video sites, and the occasional gray-market home media release.

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Yes. As I mentioned before, this was on HBO Max for a limited time in 2020. A year after that, it was streaming on WarnerMedia RIDE until 2023, which did seem to welcome some controversial shorts, but not all of them. Since 2025, “Hamateur Night” is on Tubi’s Looney Tunes channel, uncut, uncensored, and remastered.

‘Til next time, stay Looney and be Merrie.

Drawn and Quartered's Belated Christmas Spectacular -- Episode #1: Gift Wrapped (Christmas Chaos)

Director(s): Friz Freleng

Summary: Sylvester celebrates Christmas Day by going after the pet canary (Tweety) that was meant to be a present for Granny. Things get complicated when Granny also gets a bulldog named Hector, who goes after Sylvester, and Granny must teach her housepets how to celebrate peace on Earth and goodwill to men (as in “humanity.” It’s not meant to exclude women and non-binary/non-gender-conforming people. When will people learn this? I did, back in seventh grade).

Fun Facts:

• This cartoon was in the running to be nominated for an Oscar in 1952, joining “Ballot Box Bunny” (the Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam cartoon whose political satire still holds up today) and “Little Beau Pepe” (as much as I like the Pepe Le Pew cartoons and admire how Robert Gribbroek and Philip DeGuard capture the beautiful, but vast isolation of the Sahara desert, I don’t feel this deserves an Oscar the way “For Scent-imental Reasons” did. If any Pepe cartoon after “For Scent-imental Reasons” deserves an Oscar nom and possible win, it’s a toss-up between “The Cat’s Bah” [since Maurice Noble and Philip DeGuard captured how gorgeous, but claustrophobic and foreign The Casbah is, especially if you’re lost and being pursued by a stranger with lascivious designs on you. It’s every female traveler’s nightmare, and I’m amazed they showed it back in the 1950s, because it feels more like a modern problem] or “Really Scent” [just to see if Pepe cartoons that end with the titular character getting what’s coming to him for his unwanted amorous pursuits really do win over the Academy, though “Little Beau Pepe” also ended on that note, so, yeah, this kinda belongs there when you take that into account]). Sadly, none of the three were nominated. I feel that “Gift Wrapped” would have been picked easily, since, at the time, Sylvester and Tweety shorts were crowd-pleasers, and Freleng already netted a win with 1947’s “Tweetie Pie” (the very first Sylvester and Tweety pairing, where Sylvester is strangely named “Thomas”) and would later net another win with “Birds Anonymous” in 1957 and be previously nominated for “Canary Row” in 1950 and “Sandy Claws” in 1955.

• Speaking of background artists, this is the first one to have Irv Wyner as Friz Freleng’s background artist after Paul Julian left to work for UPA. The differences between a Paul Julian background and an Irv Wyner background are:
• Paul’s backgrounds are more realistic, and often include funny background events, such as Yosemite Sam’s ship being blown up and sinking after Sam fails to catch the match being tossed in the gunpowder room in “Buccaneer Bunny,” Elmer’s “Wabbit Twacker” getting mangled after he falls off the cliff in “Hare Do,” and the many advertisements for products and services that have the names of Freleng’s staff on them (including Friz himself), such as “Friz: America’s Favorite Gelatin Dessert!” seen in “Putty Tat Trouble” or the “Hawley and Pratt Sherry” as seen in “Kit for Kat” (most times, when Hawley Pratt’s name is used for a product, service, or company, it’s shown as “Hadley Pert” or “Hadley and Pert”).
• Irv’s backgrounds have richer color and can be just as realistic as Julian’s work (as seen in the opening scenes where it’s snowing on Christmas Eve, Granny is asleep, Sylvester is waiting by a mouse hole, and everything in the house is so cozy and warm), but Wyner’s backgrounds don’t add to the humor of the short with funny Easter eggs involving the names of Freleng’s staff or implied action.

• Despite still being under copyright (for now, anyway), there were some instances of “Gift Wrapped” being available on gray-market public domain videos. While there have been instances of color shorts falling into the public domain for one reason or another (I mentioned “Jerky Turkey” as an example in the previous post, but there are others), I don’t know how that could have happened with “Gift Wrapped”.

The Channel(s): ABC, The WB, and Cartoon Network/Boomerang (USA feed only)

Part(s) Edited: Get some milk (regular, plant-based, or lactose-free, doesn’t matter) and cookies (regular, plant-based, gluten-, or lactose-free, still doesn’t matter), because look what Santa brought me for belated Christmas (most of this is from my comments on the Anthony’s Animation Talk video for this short. I often use the comments section as a springboard for any writing pieces centered on cartoon history or critique):

From 1990s ABC Saturday mornings (or early afternoon, since The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show did come on at noon where I live), we have a version of “Gift Wrapped” where:

• Granny whacking Sylvester with her broom (recycled from 1947’s “Tweety Pie”) was shortened for violence,
• Sylvester staggering down the stairs after getting blown up by the dynamite stick in Tweety's cage was cut (though the actual dynamite switcheroo wasn’t censored. Odd, since ABC usually does it in other cartoons), and,
• Sylvester getting shot by Tweety’s “toy” gun during the Hopalong Cassidy scene was cut (I’m amazed that was all that was cut, because American Indian stereotypes are one of the many things ABC cut when they had the rights to the Looney Tunes cartoons).

Our good friends at Cartoon Network and Boomerang (with The WB piggybacking on the gift last minute) left in the broom-bashing and dynamite part, but, unlike ABC, actually saw the Hopalong Cassidy part as offensive due to American Indian stereotypes and cut it...until 2003, where Cartoon Network and Boomerang freely aired it uncensored. The WB, from what I’ve been told by a fellow video commenter (name concealed due to not asking permission to use it, but if you search for the commentary on the video, you should find out who it is), did what ABC did to that part and just cut Sylvester getting shot by the toy gun after pulling the cork (which is also what the channel did when they aired the Foghorn Leghorn short, “Feather Dusted” from 1955) rather than edit the entire scene because of the American Indian stereotypes.

It should be noted that the Hopalong Cassidy scene was never edited on Cartoon Network and Boomerang feeds outside of the United States (which means some kid in the United Kingdom is probably enjoying this short, despite that the UK’s BBFC also has rules against showing outdated racial and ethnic stereotypes, but their content reports do note that, in the case of the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts, they’re products of their time and not meant to be hurtful…in this case, anyway. Shorts like “Horse Hare” and most of The Censored Eleven do beg to differ), nor was the scene cut when Cartoon Network and Boomerang aired the 1959 clip show cartoon, “Tweet Dreams.” (where the past cartoon shorts are used as flashbacks during Sylvester’s therapy session) and when MeTV and MeTV Toons (which are more about editing outdated racial and ethnic caricatures rather than violence, since that’s the world we live in now) aired both “Gift Wrapped” and “Tweet Dreams.” The Hopalong Cassidy scene even played uncut during the holiday season at the former Warner Bros. store (it’s like The Disney Store, but it sells WB stuff. The anonymous commenter did tell me this, as that person saw it happen as a child).

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): The usual hypocrisy of how ABC and the WB just cut this for violence, but saw nothing wrong with showing American Indian stereotypes while Cartoon Network and Boomerang had their heads on straight until 2003 and edited for the latter reason. Then there’s the fact that ABC’s and WB’s version make it look like Sylvester immediately fell down the Christmas tree as he’s climbing it. Yes, Looney Tunes villains can be clumsy, and characters like Wile E. Coyote and Sylvester do fail because of their own short-sightedness, but the edit makes it look like Sylvester is dumber than usual in that he can’t climb a tree rather than he can climb, but he fell down because he was checkmated by a canary packing a loaded gun that he assumed was a toy (this would also be my ground gear for the infamous “You Beat Your Wife” cut on 1956’s “Wideo Wabbit.” Stay tuned for that one).

The broom-bashing being shortened on ABC doesn’t bother me, and neither does the dynamite cage part losing its punchline of a singed Sylvester staggering down the stairs. Cartoon Network and Boomerang cutting the entire Hopalong Cassidy part, making the short go from the dynamite cage part to Tweety riding on a toy train, is your typical seamless cut (and not the kind that looks painfully obvious and will get a Hollywood editor fired with good cause, as seen on The Simpsons and its demented, fan-made YouTube counterpart, Dark Simpsons) that may seem obvious to those who remember seeing it uncut elsewhere, but, for those who haven’t seen it, it won’t.

Video Comparison: And now, for your viewing pleasure, two – count ‘em, two – videos: one showing how ABC edited this and the other showing how The WB and pre-2003 Cartoon Network and Boomerang edited it. Normally, I’d load it onto one video, but I feel that this is more efficient:

ABC version:

WB, Cartoon Network, and Boomerang (US, pre-2003) version

 

Availability Uncut: This, like a lot of post-1948 WB shorts, has a good run on home media release, even though most of the releases are from the United Kingdom and Australia. The full list is here, as I’m only going to list the American releases:

• Sylvester and Tweety’s Bad Ol’ Putty Tat Blues (1994, laser disc)
• Looney Tunes: The Collectors Edition: Volume 9: A Looney Life (2000, VHS)
• Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2 (2004, DVD, disc three, restored with DVNR [digital video noise reduction. A lot of purist fans do cite this as a flaw, because it does affect the animation and art. If you’re not a purist, then this really shouldn’t affect you])
• Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection: Volume 2 (2004, DVD, disc one, also restored with DVNR)
• Looney Tunes Super Stars’ Tweety & Sylvester: Feline Fwenzy (2010, DVD, also restored with DVNR)
• Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2 (2012 and 2025, DVD and Blu-ray, disc one [for both versions], restored without DVNR)
• Best of Warner Bros. 50 Cartoon Collection: Looney Tunes (2013, DVD, disc one, restored without DVNR)
• Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection Volumes 2-3 Repack (2014, DVD, I assume it’s the “without DVNR” version, but it’s probably the “restored with DVNR” version, since it is a reissue of the Spotlight Collection from ten years ago).
• Looney Tunes Super Stars Family Multi-Feature Vol. 2 (2017, disc two, possibly restored with DVNR, since it’s a reissue)
• Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection Volumes 1-3 Repack (2018, DVD, possibly restored with DVNR)

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Yes and no. It wasn’t on HBO Max (f.k.a “Max”) in the United States, but it did make the Latin American/Brazil feed (it was on HBO Max LatAM/Brazil from 2021 to 2024, then stayed on when it changed its name to Max). The Boomerang app had “Gift Wrapped” on from 2017 to 2024, while iTunes’ actual upload year is unknown, but it’s there and it’s the “restored without DVNR” version. And yes, this is one of the 700 to 800 Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts that Tubi uploaded last year (2025).

 

‘Til next time, Stay Looney, and Be Merrie.

Winter Break 2025

Because of outside obligations (work, mostly), “Drawn and Quartered” is going on winter break. There were plans on doing Censorship Reports on some Christmas/winter-based Looney Tunes shorts, like “Gift Wrapped” and “The Fright Before Christmas,” but I decided against it.

So, have a happy holiday (assuming you celebrate them) and, provided the world doesn’t completely fall apart, I’ll see you in 2026.

Jerky Turkey (Thanks For Nothing 2: The Leftovers)

 

Hey, guys!

Thought I’d do something different and put in an MGM short that’s has had a history of being censored on American TV. I know I said a while back that I was going to do MGM shorts (which means both the Tom and Jerry cartoons and the MGM cartoons, some of which were the Tex Avery-directed shorts he did after getting fired from Warner Bros), but that was after I was finished the WB cartoons. Since this is Thanksgiving weekend (which does include Black Friday or “Day One of the Three-Day Thanksgiving Hangover”), I decided to surprise everyone and do an MGM cartoon early.

Director(s): Tex Avery (MGM edition, where the gags are wilder and more plentiful)

Summary: A dopey Pilgrim who sounds like Droopy Dog hunts a turkey who sounds like Jimmy Durante for the first Thanksgiving. World War II gags abound (as seen with the black market butcher shop, the fact that The Mayflower has a “C” ration card, which means that it gets more fuel than the “A” and “B” cards; and one Pilgrim crying over being a 1-A [the opposite of 4-F, meaning that you were physically and mentally capable of being drafted for military service]), as well as a running gag featuring a bear wearing an “Eat at Joe's” sandwich sign.

Fun Facts:

- There are Internet sources claiming that Daws Butler voiced a character in this cartoon, which is inaccurate, as Daws Butler’s first cartoon short was “Little Rural Riding Hood” (the last of the Wolf and the Redheaded Showgirl cartoons that started with “Red Hot Riding Hood” in 1943), which came out in 1949.

- The Droopy Dog-sounded Pilgrim was actually an impersonation of Bill Thompson’s Droopy voice done by Tex Avery himself, as the real Thompson was drafted to fight in World War II.

- The Pilgrim is actually recycled from the character Big Heelwatha from the MGM Tex Avery short of the same name (or referred to by its alternate title, “Buck of the Month”), which came out in 1944, was a Screwy Squirrel cartoon, and, unlike this short, didn’t see much airtime in America due to Native American stereotyping that couldn’t easily be edited out, as you’ll see in the video below.

- The Jimmy Durante turkey was originally supposed to appear in a funeral scene on the 1980s animation/live-action hybrid detective film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, but the scene was deleted.

- Fontella Bass’s music video for the 1965 song “Rescue Me” used clips from this short, as did the NBC sketch show, Saturday Night Live, on the season 41 (2015-2016 season) episode hosted by Ronda Rousey with musical guest, Selena Gomez (for reference, this is the sketch that has a clip from that cartoon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6uvv1aS5_I&feature=youtu.be).

The Channel(s): TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, and MeTV

Part(s) Edited: As the video will tell you, TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, and MeTV cut an entire sequence for two things that American TV censors and political correctness in general don’t think is very funny: suicide gags and race jokes.

After the “Eat at Joe’s” bear passes by the Droopy Pilgrim and the Jimmy Durante turkey, the original, uncut version fades to the next scene, where the Durante turkey reverses the musket so the barrel is aimed at the Droopy Pilgrim’s head, then whacks him with a spanking paddle, prompting the Droopy Pilgrim to aim and fire. The Durante turkey is shocked that the Droopy Pilgrim’s head is no longer on his shoulders, but it turns out, it’s tucked in his shirt. The Droopy Pilgrim then sees some feathers behind a log and thinks it’s the Durante turkey, but instead pulls out an angry Native American chief. The pilgrim ends up sheepishly babbling his way out of getting scalped, leaving his teeth temporarily in the air. As soon as the Native chief walks away, he encounters another Native American man, who identifies as a “half-breed,” which, as mentioned on the June Bugs 2001 post when I went over why 1960’s “Horse Hare” was banned, is an offensive term for someone who is mixed race, particularly someone who is half-white American and half-Native American, which is fantastically depicted here as one side of the Native American man is, in fact, a Native American while the other is a blond, white man in a blue suit, gray slacks, and black and white shoes. The “half-breed” then holds up a sign that reads, “Heap Corny Joke,” which was Tex Avery and his writers’ way of pointing out how lame the joke was (it was common in his MGM shorts, and I am so sure is the granddaddy of all those characters who like to break the fourth wall and point out the flaws and cliches in the work they’re in).

Yeah, all of that was edited on TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, and MeTV, though I want to point out that the musket part seems like it would have and could have slid by no problem on MeTV, since they normally don’t edit for accidental suicide (intentional, yes, but not accidental) or gun jokes that could end dangerously if imitated in real life. The other channels…not so much. While the MGM Fandom Wiki may tell you that the entire sequence was cut because of the Native American stereotypes, that’s only scratching the surface, and you know me, I want to make sure an edit that’s spoken in as few words as possible is exactly that when I go watch it on my computer or DVD/Blu-ray set. If there’s more to the scene, I will make a note of it.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): That a large chunk of the short was missing, obviously. Since Tex Avery cartoons like this are more gags than actual story, it means fewer laughs for those who expect to see it, even if those laughs are seen as problematic by today’s standards.

Video Comparison: I’m back to using Filmora 15, now with no watermarked exports, because I paid for that yearly subscription, finally. I’ll still find a use for CapCut, no matter how minimal. Anyway, here’s the video: 

Availability Uncut: Its home media release history is good, spanning from 1993 to 2021. “Jerky Turkey” first appeared on The Compleat (that’s how it’s spelled) Tex Avery laserdisc (side 2), which released every Tex Avery MGM short, including the ones that were normally banned and censored for outdated racial stereotypes. Ten years later (2003), it appeared on La Collection Tex Avery (The Tex Avery Collection), which was a French release of 98% of Tex Avery’s MGM filmography (the Fandom Wiki page explains in full what was banned and censored and why). Twelve years after that (2015), “Jerky Turkey” was released as part of the Blu-ray release of the musical Anchors Aweigh, starring Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson, and Gene Kelly, with songs by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn, as well as The Frank Sinatra Five Film Collection (which I’m so sure includes Anchors Aweigh, since there are people out there who would rather get a full DVD or Blu-ray collection than just an individual movie). Six years after that (2021), the third volume of The Tex Avery Screwball Classics Blu-ray is released and, wouldn’t you know it, “Jerky Turkey” is on there, uncut, uncensored, and restored from the 1995 Turner print.

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: No for both, even though HBO Max and Tubi have (or “have had,” in HBO Max’s case) a Tom and Jerry cartoon library that have Tex Avery cartoons mixed in (that was released before the Looney Tunes one). The good news is this cartoon (alongside “To Spring” from 1936 and “Doggone Tired” from 1949) are the only Tex Avery shorts that have fallen into the public domain, meaning you can see them on YouTube and other video websites without fear of being taken down for copyright infringement.

‘Til next time, Stay Looney, and Be Merrie (yeah, I know. This is an MGM short, but the catchphrase is too good to change).

Holiday For Drumsticks (Thanks For Nothing)

Because Thanksgiving (United States version. I know Canada had their version in October and other countries don’t celebrate the holiday) is right around the corner, I decided to jump ahead and do a “Drawn and Quartered” installment for “Holiday for Drumsticks,” which came out in 1949 (I finished the 1938 cartoons and will start on 1939 after this and my report on “Patient Porky,” which is more-or-less a sequel to “The Daffy Doc”). Please enjoy, have a safe and happy holiday (assuming you celebrate it), and try not to fill up too much on turkey. Tryptophan knock-out is real.

Director(s): Arthur Davis

Summary: A hillbilly couple (obviously named Maw and Paw) are prepping their Thanksgiving turkey (obviously named Tom) by fattening it up to kill it. Daffy, jealous of Tom eating better than he ever has, convinces the turkey to lose weight so Maw and Paw will deem it too skinny for the oven and their bellies…and, in turn, eats so much that Maw and Paw decide that not every Thanksgiving meal needs to have turkey as the main course…

Fun Facts:

- In production order, this is the next to last Arthur Davis cartoon made (made in early summer of 1947 [somewhere between June and July]; released January 22, 1949. Back then, they didn’t care if holiday-specific episodes were released around that holiday, so you could have an Easter short come out in June, as seen with Robert McKimson’s “Easter Yeggs” or a Christmas one come out in February, as was the case with the Sylvester and Tweety short, “Gift Wrapped”).

- Despite his short-lived career as an animation director (which died because the studio only had enough money in their budget for three animation directors, which is why a lot of the post-1948 cartoons people remember because of their heavy rotation on television and home media are directed by either Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, or Robert McKimson), Arthur Davis was actually very accomplished in the world of animation (this isn’t a full list. You can look up online all the achievements in animation he’s done).

Davis is credited as animation’s first in-betweener.

Davis came up with “bouncing ball” for the “Follow the bouncing ball” sing-along cartoons of the 1920s.

Davis wasn’t afraid of working on television at a time when everyone else was (kinda like how there are people who embrace A.I. and all that it can do, while everyone else either mocks it or sees it as a sign that the world as they know it is going to Hell or already is there). His post-Warner Bros career does include a lot of credits for the TV-based Hanna-Barbera series, as well as working on DePatie-Freleng’s “Pink Panther” cartoons and creating some post-Golden Age Looney Tunes shorts, like “The Yolk’s on You” and “Daffy Flies North.”

Davis’ rubbery, almost visually surreal animation style got its start at Columbia Studios, where he did cartoon shorts there. “The Foxy Duckling,” “Bone Sweet Bone,”  and “The Rattled Rooster” are three such Warner Bros shorts that feel like they’d be more at home as Columbia animated shorts.

Davis was awarded the Windsor McCay Award in 1994 for all his work in the world of animation.

- The aesthetic and humor of an Arthur Davis cartoon falls somewhere between being like Bob Clampett near the end of his stint at Warner Bros (still wacky, but mellowing out somewhat) and Robert McKimson starting out (rubbery character movement and strange interludes and lapses in logic, only Davis’ was more open with that than McKimson).

- Davis’ cartoons are also notable for having the established characters acting out of character. You had Bugs Bunny psychologically torturing a man in the only Bugs short Arthur Davis ever did: “Bowery Bugs” (1949). Then there was that time where Davis made Chuck Jones’ Pepe Le Pew a relentless pest, but took away the romantically/sexually problematic baggage, focused more on the fact that he’s a skunk, and had him fight a dog (Wellington from “Doggone Cats”) over who gets to stay in a winter cabin (“Odor of the Day”; for the novelty alone, people who normally don’t like the Pepe cartoons should be touting this as “the only good one.” I don’t know why it’s not more popular in this era where no one really wants to make fun of sexual harassment and stalking anymore). And we can’t forget the two times Arthur Davis changed Sylvester the Cat: once in “Doggone Cats” where he doesn’t talk and has a orange/yellow partner in crime who likes to troll dogs, and again in “Catch as Cats Can,” where Sylvester can talk, but sounds like a dopier version of Barney Rubble from The Flintstones and takes his orders from a green parrot who looks like Bing Crosby, reads horse racing forms like Bing Crosby, and is in a rivalry with an emaciated, Frank Sinatra-esque canary…like Bing Crosby. With Daffy Duck, Davis pretty much combined the wacky Daffy that was established with Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, and Frank Tashlin (to a lesser extent) with the burgeoning greedy jerk Daffy that Chuck Jones would be known and blamed for by viewers who don’t like Daffy’s personality change. It’s definitely apparent in “Holiday for Drumsticks” than it is in “The Stupor Salesman,” “Riff Raffy Daffy,” and “What Makes Daffy Duck?”

The Channel(s): ABC (as part of The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show)

Part(s) Edited: Two scenes of gun violence/suffocation, since network TV back in the 1980s and 1990s (the 1990s, especially) cracked down on violence like that:

1) The beginning scene where Paw’s hillbilly neighbor keeps firing shots at him, only for Paw to shoot back (with the neighbor’s agonizing scream heard from off-screen), was cut. I’m not sure if the scene of Paw tallying his latest kill (which totals up to 74 shot neighbors) was cut for continuity reasons**. The approximation video doesn’t show it as an edit, but the jury is out on whether this actually happened.

2) The part at the climax where Daffy (who has now eaten so much that Paw decides to kill him for dinner instead of Tom the Turkey) tries to quickly lose weight so he doesn’t get shot cut Daffy running into the sauna machine, which almost looks like the one from “Odor of the Day.” Either that’s a coincidence or that’s one of Davis’ recurring bits, like how Friz Freleng cartoons have references to The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, took place during The American Civil War, or had background Easter eggs showing the names of fictional products and companies named after Friz Freleng himself or any member of his animation unit (usually it was Hawley Pratt as “Hadley Pert”), only for Paw to shoot at it and the sauna machine to shrink around Daffy’s neck. The other scenes of Paw shooting at Daffy as Daffy is trying to exercise the pounds off weren’t cut**.

**I should remind my readers/viewers that the parts that weren’t cut could have been edited, but no one has reported anything. Unless I found an edited copy from back when ABC aired The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show to confirm or deny, I can only assume that those scenes weren’t edited.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): The first edit was done well enough, but since it’s not known whether or not Paw marking his latest shot neighbor on the wall was also cut, I don’t know if that means ABC left that in to show that Maw and Paw have had 74 turkeys come into their home and were either starved to death or scared off by Daffy rather than the 74 tallies representing all the neighbors that tried and failed at gunning them down. The second cut is your typical hypocritical cut: ABC left in Paw shooting at Daffy while running on a treadmill, boxing a speed bag, and lifting a barbell, but inexplicably drew the line at hiding in a sauna. As the video states, the only reason it would be cut was that ABC edited out characters getting strangled (whether by bare hands or by a noose or some kind of rope) in other cartoons and this just happened to fall in that category. Unlike the first edit, it doesn’t make or break the story/joke, but it is weird that it would be cut, since it’s one of those unrealistic/cartoony type scenes that would slide on other networks.

Video Comparison: Still using CapCut, but Black Friday/Christmas will be here soon, so hope and pray that I return to Filmora (it’s, as of this writing, on its 15^th version and comes with a lot of cool tools that not only will elevate my dormant Snow White Remix remake, but will also make the Drawn and Quartered videos more engaging):

Availability Uncut: This cartoon was first released in 1996 on the Stars of Space Jam VHS (the Daffy Duck collection) in America. In the same year, over in the United Kingdom, “Holiday for Drumsticks” was released as part of the sixth volume of the Looney Tunes Bumper Edition video collection. A year later (1997), the cartoon was part of the Japanese version of the Stars of Space Jam: Daffy Duck laser disc collection. Twenty-seven years after that (2024), “Holiday for Drumsticks” was released on Blu-ray (completely bypassing DVD and HD-DVD release) as part of the Looney Tunes Collector’s Choice set (fourth volume), as well as the repackaged version that has all four volumes compiled together.

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Yes and no. It wasn’t on HBO Max (or Max, both in the United States and in the Latin America/Brazil region), definitely wasn’t on the short-lived streaming service Warner Media RIDE, and it doesn’t have any digital download releases on iTunes or Amazon Prime Video (that I know of), but Boomerang’s streaming app had this cartoon from 2018 to 2024 and it is one of the 700 to 800 Warner Bros shorts available for free on Tubi.

‘Til next time, Stay Looney, and Be Merrie.

Pilgrim Porky (Catch of the Day)

Because Thanksgiving (United States version. I know Canada had their version in October and other countries don’t celebrate the holiday) is right around the corner, I decided to jump ahead and do a “Drawn and Quartered” installment for “Pilgrim Porky,” which came out in 1940 (I finished the 1938 cartoons and will start on 1939 after this, my report on “Holiday for Drumsticks,” and my report on “Patient Porky,” which is more-or-less a sequel to “The Daffy Doc”). Please enjoy, have a safe and happy holiday (assuming you celebrate it), and try not to fill up too much on turkey. Tryptophan knock-out is real.

Director(s): Bob Clampett (credited as “Robert Clampett”)

Summary: We see our porcine protagonist set sail from England to Plymouth Rock on the coast of Massachusetts in this historical parody of The Pilgrims leaving their native land for America. Plenty of visual gags and a running gag about a cook finding a big enough fish for the crew abound.

Fun Facts:

- The short has a gorgeous computer-colorized version that’s been under copyright since 1995.

- This did air on television, despite being one of many Warner Bros shorts that isn’t shown much on television or home media due to outdated racial stereotypes. If it didn’t, then I wouldn’t have it on my list, much less push it ahead so that way I can publish its Censorship Report on Thanksgiving (U.S. version).

- In yet another connection between Bob Clampett and Disney Studios (particularly the 1937 animated version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves), the narrator (voiced by Robert C. Bruce, who mostly played narrators of the WB and MGM Studio spot gag/newsreel parody shorts) says, “Heave-o, heave-o/It’s off to sea we go!” when Porky and the other Pilgrims set sail. No points on what that’s referencing, though you can click the link here if you truly and honestly don’t know.

The Channel(s): Nickelodeon

Part(s) Edited: All three scenes of the ship’s cook (meant to be a caricature of a black man, judging by the Eddie “Rochester” Anderson vocal impression Mel Blanc used and how much he looks like the elevator operator from “Patient Porky,” which I covered previously) were cut: when we first meet him and he dives in to get a fish; when we see him again, getting a medium-sized fish, only to be told by the narrator that it’s not big enough, and the end where a big fish swallows him.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): Since the cartoon is a pretty light affair, I don’t think the edits hurt the cartoon much…outside of the abrupt ending after the Native Americans meet Pilgrim Porky and his crew. For those asking, “Why didn’t Nickelodeon cut the appearance of the Native Americans?”, the answer is quite simple: it would have ruined the continuity. I’m so sure this is one of those cases where Nickelodeon had to leave in the Native American stereotypes because they were germane to the story, whereas the black chef looking for fish in the ocean was 86’d for not being germane to the plot (what little it had of it. It was mostly a Tex Avery-style spot gag short, only Bob Clampett directed it).

Video Comparison: I’m doing something special this go-around. Instead of my compare/contrast videos, I decided to take the short in question and do a full re-enactment of what it was like as an “edited-for-TV” version. I did use to do this with the Bosko shorts, but that was a long time ago (I am still planning on re-creating the videos and putting them in a library for people to view instead of having to sit through my gassing on about the cartoons in question):

Availability Uncut: This has been released on home media. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. If you want to (legally) see how beautiful it is in color, then you can find it on the DVD release of the movie The Fighting 69^th (which has a Looney Tunes parody title: “The Fighting 69-1/2th,” a one-shot Friz Freleng cartoon that shows red ants and black ants going to war over an abandoned picnic lunch. That does have a Censorship Report attached to it, but I won’t get to it until later, as that came out in 1941 and is also included in the DVD version of The Fighting 69^th), starring James Cagney, Pat O’Brien, and George Brent. If you want to see “Pilgrim Porky” in glorious black and white, then I recommend either the fifth volume and fourth disc of The Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set or the fourth disc of the Porky Pig 101 DVD set. No Blu-ray releases as of yet. It wasn’t released for reel-to-reel projector, and it wasn’t available on any official or unofficial VHS, Beta, or laser disc sets.

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Nope. No Amazon Prime Video, no HBO Max (or just plain “Max”) [both in the United States and Latin America/Brazil], no iTunes, no Boomerang app, and definitely no Tubi. As I mentioned in “Fun Facts,” this was rarely shown due to racial and ethnic stereotyping, even though most of the focus is on the stereotypically black ship chef and not the Native Americans Porky meets (at least when it comes to Nickelodeon censorship).

‘Til next time, Stay Looney, and Be Merrie.