The Booze Hangs High (Gross Hypocrisy)

 

Director: Hugh Harmon and Rudolf Ising

Summary: Bosko dances and sings with farm animals and deals with a pig family getting drunk on discarded booze. That and a brief scene of a duckling interrupting a dance to use the bathroom are the highlights of this short. It’s not much, but, given how much the Warner Bros cartoons were trying to be like Disney, those scenes show that this won’t last.

Part(s) Edited: Here’s something: a Bosko cartoon that hasn’t been edited on Nickelodeon to remove a character doing the Al Jolson “Mammy!” schtick. Instead, Nickelodeon cut the part where the father pig’s drunken solo is interrupted when he belches up an eaten corncob, dusts it off, flicks off a kernel, and puts it back in a trap door in his stomach. This wouldn’t be a problem, except:

a) The scene isn’t as gross as described.

b) Nickelodeon back in the late 1980s into the 1990s was all about crude and gross humor. If they weren’t, Ren and Stimpy, all variations of Double Dare, and the whole idea of dumping slime on kids and adults (which originated from the Canadian sketch show You Can’t Do That on Television) wouldn’t exist.

c) No cuts were made to the scene of the duckling squirming in desperation and whispering to his mom that he needs to use the bathroom or the piglets getting drunk and their father catching them and joining in on the drunken antics. Hypocrisy in censorship will be a running theme as this series continues.

How It Plays With the Edit: As with the “Big Man from the North” example, I have access to both the uncut and edited on Nickelodeon version for you to see how both versions play:

Edited Version: 

Uncut Version: 

Availability Uncut: This is a public domain cartoon (having been one since 1959) and you can easily find it online or on bargain bin home media. However, this one does have an official release by Warner Bros. You can find it on the sixth and final volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set (it’s on the third disc dedicated to the early black and white shorts) or on the Blu-ray version of the Greta Garbo movie, Anna Christie. That version is an HD restored version, which is better quality than the DVD version.

Box Car Blues (Throw Mammy From the Car...Again!)

Director: Hugh Harmon and Rudolf Ising

Summary: Bosko and a pig traveling as hobos in a boxcar.

Part(s) Edited: As the blog title implies, this post is more-or-less a sequel to the one for “Sinkin’ in the Bathtub”, as both that cartoon and this one were edited on Nickelodeon to remove Bosko yelling, “MAMMY!” during a perilous moment (in this case, it’s during the three times he goes through a tunnel on top of a boxcar). And, as I said in the first one, for more information about how and why this would be considered offensive, look up “Al Jolson” and the 1927 film, The Jazz Singer. Surprisingly, the train pulling the hill’s “pants” down, revealing polka-dot underwear and the hill coming to life and being embarrassed over it wasn’t cut. You’d think Nickelodeon’s censors at the time would have caught that. Then again, knowing what we know now about how the kid actors were treated on most Nickelodeon shows, maybe they looked the other way.

How It Plays With the Edit: We’re still in “edits that make no difference since the cartoon is thinly-plotted anyway” territory. There might be a slight jump in the music track, but nothing too jarring.

Availability Uncut: No physical media or streaming release as of 2024, but it is a public domain cartoon, so you can easily find it online or in bargain bin DVD releases.

Ain't Nature Grand? (Spit-Bit)

 

Director: Hugh Harmon and Rudolf Ising

Summary: Bosko’s fishing trip turns into a string of scenes where he cavorts with nature.

Part(s) Edited: Another light one from the days of Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon being a Nick at Night show. Bosko petting the fish until it spits in his face was cut. The Looney Tunes wiki says that there was a scene where Bosko gets bitten by the fish he pets, but I’ve scoured every uncut copy I could find and the biting scene doesn’t exist; only the spitting. If you care anything about people having access to correct information, please fix it. On top of that, there’s nothing overly-violent about spitting in someone’s face. Yes, it’s kinda rude and disgusting (especially since this premiered around the time when the Hays Code was written up as a guideline to proper movie content, but wouldn’t be fully enforced until 1934 and spitting back then was considered crude and disgusting enough to be a problem with the censors), but not violent. This is why I conclude that this was done either because Nickelodeon’s censors were really strict back in the late 1980s or it was just a cut made because the network needed that time for commercials.

How It Plays With the Edit: Since I can’t find evidence that this was edited, I like to imagine that the scene went from Bosko saying, “Ain’t that cute?” to the audience about the fish to the fish jumping out of his hands and back in the water. The cut doesn’t make or break the cartoon, since we’re still in the era of cartoons having thin plots and thinner characterization and only being a vehicle for visual gags set to music.

Availability Uncut: No official release as of 2024, but this is a public domain short, so your best bet is either on online video sites or bargain bin videotapes and DVDs that have compilations of old cartoons (and maybe a forgotten short film or live-action movie) that aren’t under copyright. Here’s the whole cartoon below for those who don’t want to go on YouTube:

There's also a redrawn colorized version of this short that exists, but, as far as I can tell, I never saw it on television. Here's a video showing the differences between the black and white and redrawn-colorized version:

The Big Man From the North (Born Under a Backside)

 

Director: Hugh Harmon and Rudolf Ising

Summary: Bosko is a Canadian Mountie whose sergeant assigns him the task to catch a wanted criminal, dead or alive. Like most cartoon shorts of the time at Warner Bros., expect a lot of music numbers and gags that eat up a lot of clock to cover for a thin plot.

Part(s) Edited: The version that aired on Nickelodeon’s Looney Tunes on Nick (the Nick at Nite version where it was mostly black and white shorts) cut the scene of the outlaw getting stuck in the saloon doors, Bosko grabbing the outlaw’s knife, and plunging it into his rear end. Despite this, Bosko popping out of the spittoon and firing a machine gun into the bad guy’s butt wasn’t cut. Did the Nickelodeon censors feel that the knife in the butt was more of a threat to be imitated? It did look like it could be easily done and knives are more accessible than guns, even though I live in America, where the gun/knife accessibility ratio is 50/50 or more, depending on the state laws and any precedent from previous court cases.

How It Plays With the Edit: Why should I tell you how it plays out when I can show you? Here’s how it plays out uncut (start point at 6:33):

And here’s a clip from the censored version:

Availability Uncut: So far, the only physical media that has this short are the DVD release of the 1931 gangster film, Smart Money, starring James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson and volume three of the Warner Gangster Collection DVD set. It’s not on any Warner cartoon collections (at least, not as of this writing), either in physical media or on streaming, nor has it aired on television since its days on Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon (it may have made an appearance on Cartoon Network’s Late Night Black and White, but I haven’t seen it there. Someone else can correct me on this). However, all is not lost. This cartoon has been in the public domain since 1958 and can easily be found on YouTube or whatever video website you prefer.