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-four 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.

The Lone Stranger and Porky (Mirror Shot)

 

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

Summary: In this spoof of the Western serial, The Lone Ranger, Porky’s stagecoach is hijacked and only the titular Lone Stranger and his American Indian guide, Pronto, can come to his rescue.

Fun Facts:

- Despite the title, Porky Pig has no real role in this short. He’s only there as the dude in distress (opposite of the damsel in distress), though I do applaud Bob Clampett using Porky as the one who needs to be rescued, even if it was out of contractual obligation to have Porky in the cartoons (remember: this was when Termite Terrace was still trying to hammer out the kinks in creating the characters and shorts we all know and love today. Daffy was still being underused, Porky was being overused and his novelty was fast wearing off, Bugs Bunny wasn’t created yet, Chuck Jones was trying to be like Disney, and Tex Avery and Bob Clampett were like Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo during Saturday Night Live’s shaky years between 1980 and 1984: the only ones actually coming up with funny stuff, even if it didn’t always land). It would have been so easy to make this a one-shot parody of The Lone Ranger and have a female character (human or otherwise) be the damsel in distress (or a spoof of one), but executive meddling actually came through with a good idea for a change. However, I think it would have been better to have Porky be the partner to the Lone Stranger or just make this a one-shot with no established characters.

- This cartoon is a spoof of the only theatrical Lone Ranger cartoon ever made, in which the Lone Ranger and Tonto foil a stagecoach robbery. I…couldn’t find that specific one (I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but fandom wikis aren’t always accurate), but I did find a silent animated theatrical short version of The Lone Ranger (and some animated, Saturday morning adaptations that aired on television).

The Channel(s): FOX (Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends) and Nickelodeon (Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon)

Part(s) Edited: A classic case of selective censorship:

The FOX version cut the scene of The Lone Stranger talking to Pronto in the mirror (in yet another sign that Bob Clampett spoofed Disney’s works in his own, particularly the 1937 animated version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves).

Nickelodeon’s version left in the Pronto mirror scene, but cut the bad guy shooting the off-screen narrator after the narrator calls him a “plug shot” for unloading his six-shooters at The Lone Strangers and missing him completely.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): Not the edits themselves, surprisingly, though I don’t understand why FOX cut The Lone Stranger talking to Pronto in the mirror when they probably showed him on look-out and using his television broadcast machine (it’s not the television we know now. That came post-World War II) to alert The Lone Stranger that Porky is being robbed. What grinds my gears about this is the fact that both channels didn’t cut both problematic scenes. FOX and Nickelodeon did have a history of editing gun violence and outdated American Indian stereotypes  from their respective Warner Bros shorts libraries (though Nickelodeon wasn’t as tight on censoring those as, say, censoring African-American and East Asian stereotypes, which is why I remember seeing “The Oily American” on that channel as a child and why “The Daffy Duckaroo” was one of the shorts that aired during the final installment of Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon). Then, there’s the fact that Cartoon Network and Boomerang didn’t edit this at all (barring The Bob Clampett Show, of course). Yeah, it may have not aired as frequently, but I distinctly remember seeing this uncut on Cartoon Network during daylight hours.

Video Comparison:

Availability Uncut: Pickin’s are mighty slim this go-around. There’s a computer-colorized version of this short available as a special feature on the Blu-ray version of the 1939 live-action adaptation of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (no, Disney didn’t do this, younger millennials and Gen-Zers. Please watch older stuff [as in between 1920 to 1979], even if it’s problematic or in black and white. I know that bores and/or scares you, but trust me. It’s worth it). If you want the original black and white version, it’s on the Porky Pig 101 DVD, but there’s a music error. You see, the DVD version incorrectly uses the opening theme from “Porky’s Tire Trouble” over the opening titles rather than the popular use of The William Tell Overture finale that’s used as the theme music to “The Lone Ranger” serials. If mistakes like that don’t matter to you, then have at it. Otherwise, you might want to skip that version.

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: As I said: “Pickin’s are mighty slim this go-around.” Because of the appearance of Pronto, there’s no chance this will be available on digital download or streaming, which is a shame, because it really does need the opening music fixed.

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

Patient Porky (It's Going Down, Thanks to the Elevator Operator)

As promised, here is the Drawn and Quartered post for “Patient Porky” to show how similar it is to “The Daffy Doc,” right down to being edited for outdated African-American stereotypes, with “Patient Porky” being more obvious than “The Daffy Doc.”

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

Summary: Porky is back in the hospital, but this time, he’s really sick. You see, he had a little too much cake at his birthday party, and needs medical attention. Unfortunately, the only doctor who will see him is a cat named “Dr. Chilled-Air” who should be strapped to the bed as a mental patient instead of checking the health of unsuspecting patients.

Fun Facts:

- “Patient Porky” has a lot in common with “The Daffy Doc.” Most sources (specifically, Looney Tunes Fandom Wiki) say this is a partial remake, and I agree with them to a point:

  - Both shorts have title cards featuring an ambulance (which actually is a direct lift from “The Daffy Doc,” only it’s static on “Patient Porky”).

- Both have a crazy character in a hospital (“Patient Porky”’s hospital doesn’t have a funny name to it like “The Daffy Doc”).

- Both have Porky going to that hospital and encountering the crazy character.

- Both crazy characters have delusions of being a surgeon, despite little to no medical training (Daffy, at least, has a sheepskin and a medical license. The nameless cat is just a nutjob suffering from delusions of grandeur).

- Both have an anticlimatic ending after a comic chase where the crazy character uses a saw on Porky (the iron lung joke in “The Daffy Doc”; the “Do Not Open Until Xmas” sticker on “Patient Porky”), though “Patient Porky”’s ending is a bit more disturbing (and none of it involves an iron lung or being insensitive to those with polio). Porky’s stuck with this crazy cat until Xmas. By then, the cake will be long digested, but the cat will still operate on him with a saw.

- Some differences between “The Daffy Doc” and “Patient Porky” include:

- “Patient Porky” had a prototype Bugs Bunny (the one that sounded more like a knock-off of Woody Woodpecker and acted like Daffy Duck in a rabbit suit) in what would be his last appearance in a black and white short.

- Porky appeared half-way through the cartoon (at three minutes and 18 seconds in a cartoon that’s six minutes and eight seconds when shown uncut) instead of three-quarters in.

- Porky wasn’t sick in “The Daffy Doc”; Daffy just knocked him out because he needs a patient to prove that he’s a competent surgeon. Here, Porky is sick from a stomach ache caused by overeating (those are the worst, in my opinion). Since the cause is too much birthday cake, I wonder if this was meant to be a continuation of “Porky’s Party.” That had Porky and birthday cake in it. However, it also could just be an unrelated birthday that happened off-screen.

The Channel(s): Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network (not counting The Bob Clampett Show and a 2:45am showing on June Bugs 2001. Yes, that June Bugs 2001), Boomerang, Tooncast, MeTV, and MeTV Toons

Part(s) Edited: All of those channels edited the same scenes, which is every scene featuring the Rochester-sounding elevator operator naming off all the diseases and conditions that each hospital floor treats.

Just like “The Daffy Doc” and “Patient Porky,” there are differences as to how each channel cut the scene. If you watched this on Nickelodeon, Tooncast, MeTV, or MeTV Toons, you’ll notice that the Rochester scenes are cut with a dissolve effect from one scene to another, which looks obvious, but flows better than a hard cut from one scene to the next, like what Cartoon Network and Boomerang did.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): Not much, actually. The only thing that gets to me is the fact that Nickelodeon, Tooncast, MeTV, and MeTV Toons made the edit more seamless than Cartoon Network and Boomerang. Then, there’s the fact that Cartoon Network aired this (uncut, no less) on June Bugs 2001. First off, the cartoon isn’t really considered a Bugs Bunny cartoon, despite the cameo from the crazy, prototype Bugs (heck, it’s barely considered a Porky Pig cartoon because Bob Clampett, at that point, was bored of the character and only had him in his shorts out of contractual obligation). Second off, this, as you know from one of my past posts, was the June Bugs 2001 that banned 12 Bugs Bunny cartoons for having racially insensitive caricatures, and here’s Cartoon Network coming in with an uncut short showing a racially insensitive caricature of a black man (voiced by a white guy doing a black voice, though Mel Blanc was so good at it, and it’s also the voice he used for Yosemite Sam, that I’m not even mad about it).

Video Comparison: The titles do go by fast, but that's what the rewind and pause buttons are for. On top of that, I explain everything in the blog. The videos are for evidence/re-enactments:

Availability Uncut: In yet another example of “The Daffy Doc” being considered the superior of the two, “Patient Porky” doesn’t have that many physical media releases. Its only VHS release was on the 1994 video Porky Pig: Days of Swine and Roses. The good news: it’s uncut and uncensored. The bad news (for the Looney Tunes completionist in your life): it’s computer-colorized, not in black and white. The original, uncut, black and white version is available on two DVD sets: the fifth volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection (on the disc dedicated to Bob Clampett’s best works) and the fourth disc of the Porky Pig 101 DVD set.

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: If you can believe it, it was on HBO Max from 2020 to 2025 (when the service was first called HBO Max, then changed its name to Max before it reverted to its old name and got rid of their Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies library). It became one of many WB shorts to find a new home on Tubi. And yes, the cartoon is uncut, uncensored, and shown in black and white on both platforms.

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

The Daffy Doc (Crude Reproduction, Imperfect Frame/Signs of the Times)

 

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

Summary: After causing chaos during an operation at the Stitch in Time Hospital (where their motto is, “As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Rip”), Daffy Duck decides he needs to prove himself a competent doctor…by knocking out, abducting, and performing unnecessary surgery on an unsuspecting Porky Pig.

Fun Facts:

- Going by the logline, this is one of Bob Clampett’s most twisted cartoons so far, but even he (and his colleague/frienemy Chuck Jones) thought the two inflation (nothing to do with skyrocketing prices and everything to do with an innocent animation gag becoming a sick fetish thanks to freaks and weirdos online airing out their dirty laundry…which they probably sniffed and shuddered orgasmically before they did it) scenes involving Porky and Daffy crashing into an iron lung was tasteless and shameful. Why? Because this was made when there was a polio epidemic and the vaccine wouldn’t be considered safe, potent, and for public use until 1955 (seventeen years after the cartoon was released in theaters) after being developed in 1952 (so…14 years later) by Jonas Salk at the University of Pittsburgh. It’d be like doing jokes about face masks, medical staff/facility shortages, and hospital respirators for COVID…or any AIDS/HIV joke involving gay men, heroin addicts, blood donors, or blood-donating gay male heroin addicts (which would have been a smash in the 1980s, but unbelievably offensive today).

- The lip sync for Daffy in this short is pretty much nonexistent (there are only two scenes where his mouth moves in sync with his lines), but I think that adds to the wacky and surreal humor.

- Daffy’s hopping walk as he’s following Porky is a reference to Dopey’s hopping walk during the “Heigh Ho” sequence on 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves from Disney. Don’t believe me:

Clampett vs. Disney -- Round One:

I guess Bob Clampett really did admire Walt Disney’s work, but also loved referencing/spoofing it, such as Mr. Meek blushing after Daffy kisses him (cf. Bashful doing the same when Snow White kisses him) on “The Wise Quacking Duck” (in fairness, that was probably a common trope back then, but the realization that the two scenes may be related due to Clampett’s love of spoofing Disney popped in my head when I wrote that and it’s easy to draw that conclusion, especially since [a] “meek” and “bashful” are synonyms (thank you, excessive thesaurus reading as a child), and that was the thought thread that led me to think, “Hey, Clampett might have ‘borrowed’ from that.” Yeah, my mind goes to strange places sometimes, but, as long as I find a justified reason why I would think that, or someone or something to challenge that belief, it’s not a problem, and [b] I made a video comparison of it):

Other examples of Clampett spoofing/referencing Disney include: the scene of the flying elephant holding up a sign that reads, “I Am Not Dumbo” on “The Bashful Buzzard,” the fact that Clampett did an African-American jazz spoof of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves called “Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarves” (originally titled, “So White…” but was changed due to audiences potentially mistaking it for Disney’s first animated feature film and possible legal repercussions from Walt himself), and “A Corny Concerto” basically being Fantasia if Termite Terrace did it. There are more examples; those are just off the top of my head.

- You can tell that Clampett was focusing more on Daffy than Porky in this one. In fact, a lot of the shorts made after “Porky in Wackyland” seem to have Porky in a limited role, despite him being the star. In this one (which can, at least, be forgiven because the title is called “The Daffy Doc”), Porky doesn’t appear until the four minute and 50 second mark…in a cartoon that’s six minutes and 59 seconds long (when shown uncut. The redrawn edited version has Porky’s appearance clock in at four minutes and 47 seconds in a cartoon that lasts six minutes and 34 seconds).

-”Patient Porky” is considered a remake of this, so I will be covering that the same way I covered “Milk and Money” vs. “Porky’s Prize Pony,” because both of them have been edited for African-American stereotypes, though “The Daffy Doc”’s version is more subtle.

The Channel(s): Nickelodeon, unnamed syndication (for those channels besides Nickelodeon that aired the redrawn-colorized version), and MeTV.

Part(s) Edited: Okay, time to break this down again. There aren’t that many scenes that were cut (at least, upon first glance), but Nickelodeon aired two colorized versions of the same short. No points on which version is the more severely cut:

- Nickelodeon initially aired the infamous redrawn-colorized version from somewhere in the 1960s, which shortened the part where Daffy holds up signs telling people to be quiet to remove the “Hush Yo’ Mouf” sign (which one blog identified as African-American vernacular English [AAVE], which, in my day, was called “ebonics” and does refer to Daffy reading it off as, “regrettable,” though it sounded more like Daffy said, “Shut yo’ mouth,” not “Hush yo’ mouf.” Still, I get where this person is coming from, but ten bucks says that this is yet another white person flagellating themselves over sins of the past. I have seen worse African-American stereotypes on better animated shorts) and the sign with Hebrew writing (in one of the rare times Nickelodeon edited something for having outdated Jewish stereotypes. The only other time was the scene in “Bosko’s Picture Show” where Hitler chases after Jimmy Durante with an axe because, in his twisted, genocidal mind, “long nose” equals “being Jewish”) which translates to Bill Holman’s “Silence is Foo!” from the Smokey Stover comic strip when shaken (for the curious monolingual with dreams of being a ployglot, “Zol zein shah!” actually does mean “Shut up” or “Be quiet!”, but not in Hebrew. It’s Yiddish, which is medieval German mixed with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic and other Romance languages. It does use the Hebrew alphabet, but mostly, I’ve seen Yiddish words and phrases spelled out in English).

This is the only censorship-based edit made in the redrawn-colorized version, because the next two cuts are simply because of shoddy workmanship:

- The next cut in the redrawn version comes when, after Daffy takes Porky’s temperature with a lollipop, Daffy decides to call in a consultation by hitting himself with a mallet, summoning two ghostly versions of himself (done with double-exposure effects) who discuss with the corporeal Daffy what to do about Porky and his “condition.” That scene was cut because it was too difficult to replicate in redrawn-colorized version. The redrawn version keeps Daffy hitting himself with a mallet, then cuts to him with a saw, trying to operate on Porky. The edit makes it look like Daffy anesthetized himself before operating on Porky (like on that scene from The Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror” from season ten where Dr. Nick injects himself with a sedative before giving Homer his hair transplant…or the season six Simpsons episode where Dr. Nick accidentally anesthetizes himself before removing Bart’s appendix), which…actually does fit in with how much of a danger Daffy is when he lives up to his name and has a job in the hospital that involves medically treating patients, up to and including performing surgery. Wow. One of the few times an edit improves a scene instead of dumbing it down or making it worse. The only bad part is the continuity error of how Daffy got the saw, though that can be written off as, “He got it off-screen” or “Sometimes, it’s best if a director doesn’t show you everything that happened.”

- The final cut comes during the infamous ending of Daffy chasing Porky with a saw and the two of them crashing into the iron lung, being spat out by the machine, and going through a comic body inflation cycle before the cartoon irises out. All that was cut on the redrawn-colorized version because (say it with me now): “It was too difficult to replicate.”

Fortunately, Nickelodeon aired a computer-colorized version in the 1990s where the only edit done was the “Hush Yo’ Mouf!”/Hebrew writing translating to “Silence is Foo!” scene to remove “Hush Yo’ Mouf!”

Decades later, when MeTV aired it the same way Cartoon Network aired some of its shorts: first uncut, then edited, then back to uncut again (surprisingly, “The Daffy Doc” was not on that list of Warner Bros cartoons that went through that ordeal. It should have been, but I guess Cartoon Network didn’t know that “Hush Yo’ Mouf!” can be construed as a stereotypical way African-Americans say, “Hush your mouth!” [sarcastically]: And they’re usually so good with identifying objectionable content in otherwise family-friendly viewing…). Initially, “The Daffy Doc” was shown uncut on MeTV until January 2023, when an episode of their classic cartoon installment show, Toon in With Me, cut Daffy holding up both the “Hush Yo’ Mouf!” sign and Hebrew sign that translates to “Silence is Foo” when shaken. Two years later (2025), the scene was reinstated.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): The only thing that grinds my gears about the “Hush Yo’ Mouf!”/“Silence is Foo” part is how the MeTV version killed the joke. I wish they would have done it like Nickelodeon and just cut the first sign, or, better yet, just cut it so that way it goes from “Shhh!” to “Silence is Foo!” The rest of the edits don’t grind my gears as much because I know redrawn-colorized versions ruin great cartoons, especially those that are considered the best at being wacky and packed with wild takes.

Video Comparison: 

Availability Uncut: This one has a good run on physical home media.

- In 1985, it was released on the VHS and Beta versions of the “Warner Bros Cartoons Golden Jubilee 24 Karat” collection (on the video/Beta tape called “Daffy Duck: The Nuttiness Continues…” Of those videos, I had the Foghorn Leghorn one, the Sylvester and Tweety one, the Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner one, the Bugs Bunny one, the Speedy Gonzales one, the one showcasing the best cartoons directed by Chuck Jones, the one showcasing the best cartoons directed by Friz Freleng, and the one showcasing the best voice acting done by Mel Blanc. The Daffy one, the Porky one, and the Elmer Fudd one I never had. The Pepe Le Pew one is a gray area, because, while I never got the actual tape, I did ask someone to record some select cartoons off it in a tape trade back when I had a VCR and the “Pepe Le Pew: Zee Best of Zee Best” DVD wasn’t made yet).

- Eleven years later (1996), “The Daffy Doc” was released on a UK VHS called “Daffy Duck” as part of their “Looney Tunes Collection.”

- Ten years after the UK release (2006), it appeared as a special feature on the DVD version of The Marx Brothers film, Room Service (which featured a pre-I Love Lucy Lucille Ball. In fact, Lucille Ball did a lot of movie comedies before becoming more well-known as a TV star).

- A year after that (2007), “The Daffy Doc” was picked for the fifth volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set (on disc three, which celebrates Bob Clampett’s best works. This version also has audio commentary by Mark Kausler, who does point out that, later in their respective lives, Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones didn’t like the iron lung gags because they felt it was insensitive to polio sufferers).

- Four years after that (2011), it was on disc one of The Essential Daffy Duck DVD set.

- Six years after that (2017), “The Daffy Doc” was released as part of the Porky Pig 101 DVD set (since it’s technically a Daffy/Porky cartoon).

- Finally, eight years after that (2025), “The Daffy Doc” appeared as a special feature on the Blu-ray release of the movie, The Citadel, starring Robert Donat and Rosalind Russell.

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Yes. It was one of many Warner Bros shorts that used to be on HBO Max (then Max) between 2020 and 2025, and is now on Tubi as of 2025.

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

 

I’d like to thank NotebookLM for helping me research and outline this and other Warner Bros shorts. It started off as just needed background material on the Porky/Sylvester horror vacation trilogy shorts, but I did find some interesting stuff on this short. Maybe I’ll do a regular, “analyzing Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies” shorts blog later, because you can learn a lot on how Daffy’s wacky persona in this short is different than it is on “The Wise Quacking Duck.”

The Night Watchman (Beaten to the Punch)

 

Director(s): Chuck Jones (credited as “Charles Jones”)

Summary: In this, Chuck Jones’ directorial debut, Tommy Cat, the son of a sick night watchman, is tasked to keep guard of the kitchen, and finds himself bullied by gangster mice. While there are gags involving mice eating the food and a musical number that doesn’t advance the plot (but does show that the mice are in control as Tommy tries to fight back), the short does have a story and character arc: Tommy, who has never had a position of authority before because of his timid demeanor, has to learn to stand up for himself so he can get the mice out of the kitchen and make his father proud.

Fun Facts:

- The obvious one: this is Chuck Jones’ first cartoon as director after years of animating for Bob Clampett, thanks to Frank Tashlin temporarily leaving Termite Terrace. This was also the start of his foray into being Disney-esque, which artistically, isn’t too bad, but since Leon Schlesinger Studios (a.k.a Termite Terrace, a.k.a Warner Bros. Animation) prided itself more on being brash and wacky (which Tex Avery and Bob Clampett did before they both left for greener pastures) to compete with Disney being beautifully animated and lacking in the jokes and gags department (though Snow White and the Seven Dwarves had its moments of being like a less harsh, but still slapstick-packed animated version of The Three Stooges, particularly in the sequence where The Seven Dwarves think their house is haunted and most scenes with Dopey. Walt even offered five dollars [that’s $112.78 in 2025 money] for the best visual and verbal gags that ended up in the movie. Not a bad price for coming up with funny stuff), most critics, fans, and even Chuck Jones himself don't/didn't think highly of his pre-1948 oeuvre (outside of "The Dover Boys," of course).

- The voice actress for Tommy Cat (Margaret Hill-Talbot, who, I’m not making this up, also went by the name “Peggy Hill” and, hopefully, was nothing like this one) would later be the voice actress for Sniffles the mouse (the Chuck Jones series of cartoons that symbolizes Jones’ early days trying to copy Disney, which has come under fire for being slow-paced and devoid of comedy [though I’d say that the comedy is lighter and not as cynical as his later works. It’s safe for kids and those who don’t like dark humor or thinks there’s too much of it in the world]).

- The short is also one of a handful of Warner Bros. cartoons that depicts the cat as the hero and the rats as the villains. It might not seem like much now, but try to look at it through the eyes of someone from 1938 who is used to seeing Warner Bros and some Disney cartoons where the cat is the enemy and the mice are the heroes (MGM wouldn’t come out with Tom and Jerry until 1940, with “Puss Gets the Boot,” so that’s why it’s not included).

-Right off the bat, you can see Chuck Jones was experimenting with visual effects and trying to take animation to new and exciting directions. “The Night Watchman” made extensive use of double exposure, as seen with the illumination of Tommy Cat’s flashlight, the singing rat trio against a spotlight, and the ghosting effects shown when all the rats glare at Tommy Cat who tells them to be quiet and when Tommy Cat’s guardian angel urges him to stand up for himself and fight back against the gangster mice. Despite Jones’s distinct vision, some sequences animated by certain artists still carried hallmarks of other Warner Bros. units, such as A.C. Gamer’s rats being drawn simply, resembling rodents from the Freleng unit, or the rats having exaggerated drawings that, ironically, would be at home on a Bob Clampett short.

Okay, enough animation history, let’s get to what we all came here to see: hardcore editing!

The Channel(s): The WB

Part(s) Edited: After Tommy Cat’s guardian angel urges him to fight back against being bullied, some scenes of Tommy Cat punching the gangster mice while “Yankee Doodle” plays are edited. The old Censored Cartoons Page and the Looney Tunes Fandom Wiki don’t go into specifics into what punches were cut, so I just went by what I think a censorship editor for a free-to-air TV channel would do.

What Wasn’t Cut But Should Have Been: The mice bullying Tommy Cat, obviously. I don’t think it’s fair if the bad guys can get away with treating the hero (or heroine [the second “e” is the difference between a female hero and a dangerous needle drug. Please remember that during your English grammar classes]) like crap, but the hero can’t fight fire with fire. Maybe the end where the main mouse villain gets pants’d, since that counts as sexual harassment/humiliation, but if “The Night Watchman” was edited around the time The WB was a TV channel (the 1990s), then that can easily be brushed off as comedic karma.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): I…mentioned why I didn’t like the cut above: why do the villains get to be shown bullying the innocent, but the innocent can’t be shown fighting back with similar dirty tactics? Just once I’d like to see that if it doesn’t already exist.

Video Comparison (still using CapCut, which has an amazing free version that I want to use for my censorship blog videos...at least until it tells me I can’t use it anymore without buying it. So far, it hasn’t done that, but I have Davinci Resolve on standby in case it does. Filmora 15 is out, and I am seriously considering buying it so I can continue with my A.I. Snow White 1937 spoof [and definitely improve on the clips I have uploaded as of this writing], but that won’t come until either some time this month or in December, just in time for Christmas):

Availability Uncut: This one has a respectable presence on physical home media. First, it was on laser disc as part of The Golden Age of Looney Tunes VHS and laser disc collection (on laser disc, the short can be seen on the first volume, side 5). Then, it made its DVD debut as a bonus feature for the 2006 release of the film A Slight Case of Murder, starring Edward G. Robinson (see?), Jane Bryan, and Allen Jenkins, but the version shown was the 1995 Turner print that most likely had the Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodie reissue title cards (it’s uncut, I assure you, but most people are anal when it comes to classic Warner Bros shorts having their original beginning and ending titles restored).

Speaking of which, the version of this short that has its original beginning and ending titles restored is available on the fourth volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection (disc four, featuring obscure cat characters that aren’t Sylvester, Sylvester, Jr., or Claude) and all of its repackaged versions, such as Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection (a smaller collection of Looney Tunes shorts that is more suited for those who don’t like or don’t want their children to see the more racially offensive and sexually-charged content. I only got the first volume of the Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection because that’s all I could afford before I got the actual Golden Collection. Pretty sure I sold the Spotlight Collection for food money in college), the international version called Looney Tunes All Stars (volume 5), and the Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection (volumes four and five repack).

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: It did a nickel (five years) on HBO Max (and Max before it reverted to its original name). It’s now on Tubi as the 700-800 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts available for free streaming as of this writing.

There’s no “‘Til next time…” because I included it in the video comparison above, but I will conclude with Sarthurva U.’s line from the “Claws for Alarm” podcast:

Stay Looney, and Be Merrie.