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.