Goin' on a Brief Break

Next week is going to be a bit busy for me in the lead-up to Labor Day weekend (plus, I have to create the videos for my next five entries), so no entries from August 26th to the 30th.

I've Got to Sing a Torch Song (The Trouble is Not Your Radio Set...)

 

Director: Tom Palmer (planned and credited); Isadore “Friz” Freleng (finished and uncredited)

Summary: The antics of a radio station run by Ed Wynn, featuring many racial and ethnic caricatures enjoying the broadcast worldwide and the title song sung by caricatures of Greta Garbo, ZaSu Pitts, and Mae West. As far as Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies fans are concerned, this one is under-the-radar for good reason. It was made when Harman and Ising finally left Warner Bros. Studios and Leon Schlesinger was desperately scrambling for replacement talent. Tom Palmer (the original director) was supposed to be that talent, but his original versions of this and “Buddy’s Day Out” were so bad that Friz Freleng (back when he was credited as either “Isadore Freleng” or “I. Freleng”) was called to salvage the trainwrecks.

The Channel: Nickelodeon (Nick@Nite version of Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon)

Part(s) Edited:

The old Censored Cartoons Page listed this short’s edits as, “Scenes of the Chinese police and African cannibals were edited out of this cartoon's black-and-white print.” 

And, they are right: there was a scene featuring Chinese police officers sleeping in a rickshaw and tying up the police radio transmitter so they won't be bothered by their boss when he calls for all cars to report to an unknown crime that was cut when Nickelodeon aired this as part of their Nick@Nite version of Looney Tunes on Nick (original airdate: August 4, 1991. The Nick@Nite Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon came on between 1988 and 1992 while the installment show itself lasted until 1999, though I never saw Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon after 1996, mostly because the cable wasn’t on much at my house and mostly because this was when Nickelodeon was airing more of its original programming rather than what they had imported from other countries and syndicated domestically), but there was only one scene featuring an African cannibal (just one, not a group of them), and that was the scene of the African cannibal tuning in to a cooking show on his skull radio and adding mustard and salt to his stew of white explorers (shown as caricatures of 1930s vaudeville and film comedians Bert Wheeler and Robert Woosley) before stirring them.

And th-th-th-that’s not all, folks! The good people who used to run the Censored Cartoons Page forgot to mention two more edits that Nickelodeon did:

• The scene of the Bing Crosby caricature Cros Bingsby crooning, "Why Can't This Night Go On Forever?" cut the brief shot of college coeds (some of which are shown in skimpy lingerie) listening to the broadcast, though the old spinster hugging and kissing her radio while listening to the broadcast as well wasn’t censored.
• The sequence of the radio show reaching international audiences had a scene of an Arab sheik shooing away his belly-dancing concubine and switching over to a broadcast of Amos 'n Andy in the uncut version. Nickelodeon’s version redubbed the Amos ‘n Andy broadcast with music from the beginning of the short.

How It Plays Edited:

1) The Cros Bingsby/coed part: Other than a mildly obvious audio skip (and the hypocrisy of leaving in the old spinster making out with a radio when the college coed part wasn’t as sexually provocative as Nickelodeon’s cut makes it out to be), this isn’t too bad.

2) The Chinese police/cannibal part: Okay, the hypocrisy of this cut is starting to annoy me. They left in the Inuit/Eskimo man listening to the radio and nearly getting swallowed by a whale. I can only handle one instance of selective censorship at a time.

3) The Amos ‘n Andy redub: Eh, the music makes the scene feel a bit off. Why would the sheik shoo away his concubine just to listen to some music when he was already listening to music? I guess it can be written off as, “He was sick of the music from his country and wanted to listen to something different, since this is a sequence showing Ed Wynn’s radio show hitting international audiences,” but even that’s pushing it.

And what’s odd about all of this is that I was given the edited Nickelodeon copy from a tape trade and a few years later, the cartoon itself was released on DVD (see “Availability Uncut” below), so I did what every amateur animation critic should do: I watched them side by side to see what was cut and what wasn’t. The old Censored Cartoons Page, sadly, didn’t correct the mistake, so I had to make do with the Looney Tunes Fandom wiki and, of course, this blog here.

Video Comparison: The video was too big to load on the blog, so click here to see for yourself.

Availability Uncut: This under-the-radar short surprisingly has been released on physical media. It’s on the DVD and Blu-ray version of the film Gold Diggers of 1933 (since the title song is also heard in the movie) and it’s on the fifth volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set. Archive.org has it online (for now), but it’s not on YouTube, unless you want to see clips of how it was censored on Nickelodeon or one of the audio commentary reviews from Anthony’s Animation Talk.

Bosko's Picture Show (Hit-ler and Miss, or Meet the Fawkers)

 

Director: Hugh Harmon and Isadore "Friz" Freleng

Summary: In this, the last Bosko short made for Warner Bros/Leon Schelsinger studios, Bosko shows viewers what a night at the movies was like back in the early 1930s. There were sing-alongs with actual in-house organ players, a newsreel showing world events, a short film featuring comedy duo Laurel and Hardy (though some theaters showed other shorts from comedy duos -- and trios, in the case of The Three Stooges), and a melodrama where Honey is in danger of being kidnapped by Dirty Dalton (the cur!).

The Channel: Nickelodeon (Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon -- Nick @ Nite version; as of the second airing)

Part(s) Edited:

• The “Out of Tone” newsreel sequence is missing the story of a Hollywood screen lover (Jimmy Durante) spending his vacation in Germany getting chased by Adolf Hitler (in what is commonly believed to be his first caricatured appearance in an American cartoon. “Cubby’s World Flight”, an obscure short made around the same time as this, is considered the first, but when was the last time you’ve heard someone talk about Cubby?) with an axe.
• During the melodrama He Done Her Dirt (And How!), Bosko shouts “The dirty fuck!” when he sees Dirty Dalton (the cur!) sneak onscreen on a wheel-less bicycle. The first time Nickelodeon aired this short, that part wasn’t cut (or so it’s believed). Starting with the second time, “The dirty fuck!” was changed to “The dirty cur!” (with “cur” being recycled from the part near the end where Bosko yells, “Stop, you cur!” before jumping through the movie screen).

How It Plays Edited: The first cut doesn’t really affect the overall short. The abrupt cut in audio might hint at something missing, but it can logically be written off as a scene that was cut before theatrical release, not a scene that was edited when aired on television. As for the second cut, it’s obvious that something’s been changed, as this video will show you:

Availability Uncut: The only official release it has (as of 2024) is on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection volume six (on the third disc dedicated to Bosko, Buddy, and one-shot black and white musicals). As it’s still under copyright, you’re not going to find the whole thing on YouTube. You might find clips of the infamous “dirty fuck” line and a review/commentary or two, but no full cartoon. Archive.org does have it uncut, but even that website has had copyrighted videos taken down, so catch it while you can or just shell out money for an official release.

Final Thoughts and Miscellany: If you’re wondering whether or not Bosko actually did call Dirty Dalton a “dirty fuck,” then you’re not alone. A lot of classic animation fans and historians have argued this. Some believe that Harman and Ising wouldn’t go that far, since this was the time that the Hays Code was in effect, but no one really took it seriously until mid-1934 (this cartoon was released in 1933, so dicey content in American movies still popped up here and there. You can visit pre-code.com or just look up “pre-Code movies” on YouTube or whatever search engine you prefer if you want to learn some American film history before its Golden Age) and think that Bosko called Dirty Dalton a “dirty fox” (which is the line in the closed captions/subtitles on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection volume six version) or a “dirty mug”. While Mark Kausler (animator and director of the 1991 animated version of Beauty and the Beast, the 1994 animated version of The Lion King, and 2001’s Osmosis Jones) thinks Bosko’s line was “the dirty mug,” according to lip sync and a perceived soundtrack flaw that turned an innocent word obscene, animation historian Jerry Beck had several people see the film, with all of them concluding that Bosko indeed called Dirty Dalton a “dirty fuck.” As for me, I believe Bosko did say “dirty fuck,” but it sounded more like “dirty fock” (rhymes with “hawk”). Guess if the short “u” sound was replaced with an "aw" digraph sound, no one would know the difference back then.

Then there’s the question of why Harman and Ising would let this slip. Was it because films back then were trying to be as subversive and obscene as possible, which caused the Hays Office to censor films more harshly after mid-1934, since the Code wasn’t as enforced as it should have been when it first came out in 1930? Were Harman and Ising so mad at Leon Schlesinger over budget issues that this was their “screw you”/“up yours”/“take this job and shove it” (all of which would be too rude to say or imply under the Hays Code, just so you know) moment that led them to go work for MGM? Or is it actually just an innocent word turned rude?

I Like Mountain Music (Lip Service, or Three Sides to Every Story)

 

Director: Rudolf Ising

Summary: In a follow-up to “Three’s a Crowd,” characters from books and magazines of the early 1930s come to life in a drugstore at midnight. It’s not the first to have this (since “Three’s a Crowd” also had book characters coming to life and other shorts, like “Red-Headed Baby” and “It’s Got Me Again” were also cartoons where animals, inanimate objects, and fictional characters also partied once the clock struck midnight), but it is the first to establish this formula, which would last until the directors decided to make cartoons with actual plots and characters, culminating to Bob Clampett creating the ultimate “book characters partying after midnight” short, “Book Revue.” (I know an episode of the 1990s Animaniacs did something like this in a video store, but, like “Book Revue,” that was a spoof of a bygone subgenre).

The Channel: Cartoon Network (on an episode of Late Night Black and White and on the “Midnight at the Bookstore” episode of ToonHeads); Radio & Television Managers redrawn version.

Part(s) Edited:

• A short scene of African natives (standing in front of a magazine called Asia magazine, which makes me wonder if they’re actually African natives or are supposed to be South Asian [as in “from India”]) flapping their oversized lips to the music as Sonja Henie (a well-known figure skater back in the 1930s) skates on a mirror with baby powder to simulate snow was cut when Cartoon Network aired the short on Late Night Black and White. It was also cut when it was shown as a redrawn-colorized version on the ToonHeads episode, “Midnight in the Bookstore,” which, coincidentally, wasn’t part of the original episode. The original “Midnight in the Bookstore” episode (first aired on December 18, 1998) had the cartoons “Speaking of the Weather,” “You’re An Education,” and “Book Revue.” Apparently, “You’re An Education” was so filled with outdated racial and ethnic stereotypes that it was pulled and replaced with “I Like Mountain Music” (which also had outdated racial and ethnic stereotypes, but was easier to have those scenes removed) in reruns.
• The Radio & Television Managers redrawn version (retitled “Magazine Rack”) left in the African/South Indian natives and their oversized lips, but altered the magazine publishing dates to 1970 rather than some time in the early 1930s and cut the performance of “Sweet Adeline” because it had racially insensitive caricatures of Pacific Islanders (which are really just the hula girl and the native guitar players from “Pagan Moon”)

How It Plays Edited/Video Comparison: Since I recently stumbled upon a video that shows a three-way comparison between the original uncut black and white version versus the Radio & Television Managers redrawn version versus the Turner Entertainment version, I’m just going to show that instead of tell you (the reader) for the billionth time that the edits didn’t affect the story because this is one of those musical cartoons that doesn’t have much in the way of plot. Yeah, there’s a sequence where the other book characters try to stop criminals from a crime thriller pulp magazine, but those are a dime a dozen in shorts like this. If, for any reason, this gets pulled from YouTube for copyright reasons, I’ll edit the post to reflect the change:

Availability Uncut: Despite both the uncut and edited redrawn versions being available on YouTube, it is under copyright (though something tells me it’ll be in the public domain in a few short years). It has been officially released on the fifth volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Age laserdisc set (it’s on side one, which is dedicated to black and white cartoons), the final volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set (on the third disc dedicated to the early black and white cartoons. It’s on the bonus cartoon list, alongside “I Love a Parade,” “Sittin’ on a Backyard Fence,” and “How Do I Know It’s Sunday?” It’s not remastered, if you care about that sort of thing, but it is uncut and censored), and is a bonus feature on the Public Enemies: The Golden Age of Gangster Films DVD (released in 2010), on the Blu-ray version of the film Ladies They Talk About starring Barbara Stanwyck, and on the Blu-ray version of the 1933 adaptation of Little Women starring Katharine Hepburn. Both Blu-ray movies have the cartoon uncut, uncensored, restored, and remastered for high-definition. It was available on HBO Max (now called “Max”) when the streaming service was first released in 2020, but it was removed as quickly as it premiered due to (say it with me now): scenes of outdated racial and ethnic stereotypes.

Bosko's Knight-Mare (Falling Stars)

Director: Hugh Harman

Summary: Bosko dreams that he’s a Knight of the Round Table after falling asleep while reading a book on Arthurian legends.

The Channel: Nickelodeon (on the Nick @ Nite version of Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon)

Part(s) Edited: When Bosko first meets the Knights of the Round Table in his dream, the scenes showing the knights as popular celebrities of the day (Ed Wynn, Jimmy Durante, Mahatma Ghandi, and Oliver Hardy, with Bosko turning into Stan Laurel, Hardy hitting Laurel/Bosko and Laurel/Bosko whining over getting hit) was cut.

Opinion on the Edit: Yeah, there’s no real explanation behind his cut. Arguments can be made that the Ghandi caricature could be potentially offensive, as Mahatma Ghandi is a revered figure in Indian history, but I have a feeling that Nickelodeon left in caricatures of Ghandi in other early black and white Warner Bros shorts. Maybe there was some kind of licensing issue over the celebrity likenesses being depicted, but then all the celebrities caricatured here and in other shorts would have been cut. Since the only celebrities the Nickelodeon version allowed were the original Marx Brothers (back when Zeppo was included alongside Groucho, Harpo, and Chico), I’m going to assume that the cut was done because the scene simply ran too long and Nickelodeon needed to shorten the cartoon to make room for more shorts and, most importantly, more commercials.

How It Plays Edited: There’s an obvious skip in the audio track, but nothing too serious. That’s all I got.

Video Comparison: 

Availability Uncut: Yeah, there’s no real legal way to see this. It was on television back when Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon aired this in the late 1980s into the early 1990s. I’m not 100% sure if Cartoon Network ever aired this, since they did air black and white Warner Bros cartoons, but most of them were the one-shot musicals. As of 2024, it hasn’t been released on DVD, Blu-ray, or streaming (either as part of a WB short collection or as a special feature to a film). Since it’s under copyright, most video websites will take it down -- operative word being “most”. While YouTube may only have it available as part of a review or to show how Nickelodeon edited it, DailyMotion has it uncut, as does Archive.org.

The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives (A Recycled Mess)

 

Director: Rudolf Ising

Summary: On a cold and snowy Christmas Eve during the Great Depression, an orphan boy is visited by Santa Claus and joins him on his sleigh ride back to the North Pole, where the boy gets to play with all the toys Santa has in his workshop.

The Channel: Cartoon Network (on Late Night Black and White)

Part(s) Edited: If you think a wholesome cartoon like this couldn’t possibly have problematic content in it, then this must be your first time here. The second half of the cartoon does have some outdated depictions of African-Americans (like most cartoons of the time) and Cartoon Network cut the following that they felt was offensive:

• The orphan boy winding up the Sambo Jazz Band toy (“sambo” being an offensive term for a black person, though it’s more for someone from South India, not an African-American, as there’s a children’s book called Little Black Sambo and it’s supposed to be about a South Indian, not an African-American. It was probably used as a slur for both either way). The Sambo Jazz Band toy was also seen (and edited on Cartoon Network) on the MGM cartoon, “Toyland Broadcast” (which I had on a video featuring Christmas-themed MGM cartoons and loved as a kid, despite the outdated racial and ethnic stereotypes).
• A white baby doll falling into a coal bucket and coming out in blackface, doing the Al Jolson “Mammy!” schtick, with an actual mammy doll responding, “Sonny boy!”
• The title character and her black back-up singers from “Red-Headed Baby” appearing again to sing “The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives.”

How It Plays Edited: The Looney Tunes wiki and the old Censored Cartoons Page have described the edited version as “severe.” While the edits do make some of the scenes feel disjointed, it pales in comparison to the actual severe edits seen on “September in the Rain,” “Bacall to Arms”, and most of the post-1948 Warner Bros shorts aired on free TV (particularly on ABC and CBS, though NBC’s take on “The Turn-Tale Wolf” and The WB’s hatchet job editing to “A Star is Bored” qualify).

Video Comparison: 

Uncut version:

Edited Version:

Availability Uncut: This is a public domain cartoon (has been since 1962), so it’s not too hard to find on YouTube or whatever YouTube substitute you prefer. If you’re a physical media fan, then you can find it on either the Golden Age of Looney Tunes laserdisc (volume 3, side one, dedicated to Harman-Ising cartoons), as a special feature on the DVD version of the 1933 film Lady Killer starring James Cagney, or as a special feature volume three of The Warner Gangsters Collection. 

It should also be of note that this is the last Harman-Ising short that’s in the public domain in the United States (for now, at least) and the only public domain short in 1933, which means that the rest of the censored cartoons I go through are still under copyright (unless otherwise noted, as there are some 1930s and 1940s cartoons that have fallen into the public domain and a few were made as educational/propaganda material for the U.S. government, so they never had copyrights to begin with) and I’ll have to change how I do the video comparisons to reflect that.

Three's a Crowd (Booked on Friday)

Director: Rudolf Ising

Summary: When an old man finishes reading Alice and Wonderland for the night and goes to bed, the title character comes out of the book and holds a literary dance party set to the title song…until Mr. Hyde kidnaps her.

The Channel: Cartoon Network (from Late Night Black and White)

Part(s) Edited: Every scene with Robinson Crusoe and his black native guide, Friday, was cut, as well as the entire scene of Uncle Tom from Uncle Tom’s Cabin singing “I Got the South in My Soul.”

How It Plays Edited: Even though this is one of those musical shorts that has a thin plot and is mostly a chain of scenes, this does suffer a bit from being edited. Mr. Hyde coming out of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde had to be edited because you can hear Uncle Tom singing, which will make viewers wonder where Mr. Hyde came from. There’s also Mr. Hyde getting sprayed with ink by Robinson Crusoe and Friday, which had to be cut and leads to Hyde getting sprayed by unseen forces. The video comparison below tells it all.

Video Comparison:

Uncut version:

Edited version: Link here

Availability Uncut: As of 2024, the only physical media release it has is on the Golden Age of Looney Tunes laserdisc set (second volume, side one, “Musical Madness”). It hasn’t (yet) been released on DVD, Blu-ray, streaming, or digital download (and, despite the black stereotypes, it does feel safe to show. It’s not heavy with it, like “Goin’ to Heaven on a Mule” or any of the Censored Eleven shorts), but it is readily available on online video sites, as it’s been in the public domain since 1961.

Bosko the Lumberjack (Moose-Taken Identity)

Director: Hugh Harman

Summary: In a refreshing break from the one-shot musical cartoons, we’re back with Bosko. As the title indicates, Bosko is a lumberjack who cuts down trees and tries to save his girlfriend, Honey, from a villain named Pierre. It should also be noted that this is (so far) the last Bosko cartoon to be public domain (as the years go by, this will change and I will try to edit in the changes to reflect that).

The Channel: Nickelodeon (on the Nick@Nite version of Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon)

Part(s) Edited: According to the old Censored Cartoons page, there was said to be a scene cut where Bosko fires a rifle into a moose head. Turns out that’s a lie. The actual scene cut was Pierre entering the cabin with Honey to escape Bosko trying to get Honey back, and the moose head on the wall randomly coming to life and shooting Pierre in the butt repeatedly. The Mandela effect at its finest.

How It Plays Edited: Doesn’t affect the overall story, but does create the plot hole of Pierre rubbing his butt just as Bosko enters the cabin to fight him. Nothing major.

Video Comparison:

Uncut version:

Edited clip:

Availability Uncut: As mentioned before, this is the last Bosko cartoon that has fallen into the public domain in America (and, with time, there will be more to come). Since there are no official releases of this short (either on streaming or physical media), your best bet is to watch it on online video sites that allow public domain videos.

I Love a Parade (Is This a Jo Jo Reference? Just Barely)

Director: Rudolf Ising

Summary: Despite the song being about a parade, the whole short is a collection of gags involving a day at the circus, from an animal parade and an unlucky DSC cleaner following them to mice who use an ostrich and a slingshot to get into the circus for free to a tattooed freak (back when they were circus sideshow acts instead of part of the general population) showing off the swishy male face on top of his bald head, to conjoined twin (called “Siamese twin,” since this was before political correctness was invented) pigs, smoking a cigar to a hula-dancing hippo accusing said tattooed freak of sexual harassment thanks to a mouse with a party favor horn to Mahatma Ghandi as a goat charmer, and ending on a lion with fleas.

The Channel: Cartoon Network (on an episode of Late Night Black and White).

Part(s) Edited: Despite the questionable gags involving a DSC clerk cleaning animal poop (which was cut from “Drip Along Daffy” on Cartoon Network, but the ulterior motive isn’t what you think), homosexuality, tobacco use, outdated terms for conjoined twins, and sexual harassment mentioned above, Cartoon Network found the scenes with Jo Jo the Wild Man (a stereotypical African native locked in a cage for the audience’s amusement) objectionable and had them cut. This wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that they left in the scenes with the Indian Rubber Man, who would also be considered an outdated racial caricature (though he looks more like Bosko) and Mahatma Ghandi as the Thin Indian Man who uses his pungi to charm a goat instead of a snake. Maybe I’m wrong and those were edited (since I got this information from the Looney Tunes wiki and haven’t seen the edited Cartoon Network version, because, by the time the cable company in my area released Cartoon Network as a basic cable channel, the channel’s library of classic cartoons probably changed considerably to get rid of shorts that were shown edited to get rid of outdated racial and ethnic stereotypes), but this is what I discovered. Anyone reading this can and should comment or email me with additions and corrections, so I can go back and change any entry that has incomplete or false information.

How It Plays Edited: Not bad, but, as you’ll see, selective censorship (where one scene gets cut for problematic content while others are left intact, often in the same short) will be a common occurrence throughout this blog journey, not just on Cartoon Network, but on most other American TV channels.

Video Comparison:

Uncut version: 

Edited clip:

Availability Uncut: We have another Golden Age of Looney Tunes laserdisc member (volume four, side ten), another public domain short that’s been there since 1961, and a cartoon available on the last volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection (it’s an unrestored bonus cartoon, joining “I Like Mountain Music,” “Sitting on a Backyard Fence,” and “How Do I Know It’s Sunday?”). No word on whether or not a restored version exists as of this writing, but I’m sure, one day, it will surface.

The Queen Was in Her Parlor (Yas Ka-Veen)

 

Director: Rudolf Ising

Summary: A pig king returning to his castle discovers that the queen (a hippopotamus) is in her parlor (title drop!) and isn’t interested in seeing anyone, least of all her husband. Goopy Geer the court jester tries to cheer up the king, and ends up saving the queen from the advances of a black knight (“black,” as in “evil,” not “having dark skin.”).

The Channel: Cartoon Network (on an episode of Late Night Black and White).

Part(s) Edited: Like “Goopy Geer,” Cartoon Network cut a small part near the beginning to remove a character now seen as an outdated racial stereotype. LIke “Freddy the Freshman,” the outdated racial stereotype is Jewish. The scene in particular is the pig king asks a line of knights where the queen is cuts off before the sixth knight asks the seventh knight (the Jewish caricature one) about the queen (or “ka-veen,” as the seventh knight pronounces it).

How It Plays Edited: Does nothing to the story continuity, but does look obvious. If there’s a seamless way to do it, then I haven’t heard of it. My video version isn’t representative of how Cartoon Network cut it. For all I know, Cartoon Network probably left in a brief shot of the Jewish knight, but cut off before he could say anything (that’s how comically inept Cartoon Network’s editing can be at times, though they have nothing on how MeTV edited “Bugs’ Bonnets,” “Hop and Go,” or any of the “Now I’ve seen everything!” suicide scenes from “Tortoise Wins By a Hare,” “Horton Hatches the Egg,” and “Cross Country Detours”).

Video Comparison:

Uncut version:

Edited clip (approximation as re-created by me):

Availability Uncut: Like “You Don’t Know What You’re Doin’!” and “Goopy Geer”, this short is available on the Golden Age of Looney Tunes laserdisc (this one is on side ten of the fourth volume) and is freely available on online video sites because it’s a public domain cartoon (has been there since 1961. Surprisingly, “The Queen Was in Her Parlor” is also available for streaming on (HBO) Max (has been uploaded since 2020) and is a special feature on the Blu-Ray version of the pre-code film, The Mask of Fu Manchu (released in 2024).

Goopy Geer (To Yessir with Love)

Director: Rudolf Ising

Summary: The usual bouncy, pseudo-Disney antics. It’s “Lady, Play Your Mandolin!” with a new character, Goopy Geer. Goopy was supposed to be Warner Bros’ answer to Goofy. Sadly, Goopy Geer was only in two cartoons: this one and “Moonlight for Two.” (three, if you count "The Queen Was in Her Parlor," though that was a supporting role, not a starring role). Outside of being temporarily revived on an episode of the 1990s version of Tiny Toon Adventures, Goopy Geer has faded into WB cartoon obscurity.

The Channel: Cartoon Network (on an episode of their après-minuit anthology show, Late Night Black and White).

Part(s) Edited: A small scene in the beginning where, after the nightclub patrons call for the gorilla waiter, he can be seen skipping through the club, saying, “Yassah! Yassah!” While the Looney Tunes wiki says the scene was cut because the gorilla waiter had a platter of beer (just like he did on “Lady, Play Your Mandolin!”), I personally believe it was cut because the “Yassah! Yassah!” sounded stereotypically black. Add the fact that the waiter is a gorilla and the fact that black/African-American people being compared to all manner of primates (specifically monkeys and gorillas) is/was a (racist) thing and you have a reason for why Cartoon Network would want that scene gone.

How It Plays Edited: That being said, the cut (like so many in this early era of Warner Bros cartoons) doesn’t make or break the short. Also, “Lady, Play Your Mandolin!” wasn’t edited to remove the gorilla waiter when that short aired on ToonHeads: The Lost Cartoons (and that special had a lot of scenes cut for content and time), so what was the point? Surprisingly, there were no cuts to the horse getting drunk and seeing Mahatma Ghandi in the mirror before spitting on Goopy and exploding into nothing. It should also be noted that this cut was done when Late Night Black and White aired in the mid-1990s (Late Night Black and White was one of those classic cartoon compilation shows that Cartoon Network had since the channel launched in October of 1992...at least according to most Internet historians and wikis). As I have never seen the short on that compilation when Cartoon Network was brought to Comcast in 1999, I'm going to assume the short itself fell out of rotation (whether because of ethnic stereotypes or just retiring the short for better cartoons isn't known. For all I know, it could be both).

As always, here’s a video comparison:

Uncut version

Edited version (clip only. Not full cartoon)

Availability Uncut: The only physical media that has released this short is the Golden Age of Looney Tunes laserdisc (volume two, side one, same place where “You Don’t Know What You’re Doin!” is). If you’re not too stuck in your past and want to venture into the scary and twisted world of the 21^st century (not the 24^th-1/2), then you can find it available for streaming on Max (formerly known as HBO Max) in its classic Looney Tunes library. If you don’t have a laserdisc player nor want to shell out money for a streaming service subscription, then you can watch it online for free, as “Goopy Geer” has been in the public domain since 1961.

Freddy the Freshman (Cheer Factor)

Director: Rudolf Ising

Summary: A one-shot musical cartoon centered on “Freddy the Freshman,” a college upstart who crashes a pep rally and wins the unnamed college’s big game.

The Channel: Cartoon Network (Late Night Black and White)

Part(s) Edited: A brief scene featuring three Jewish parrots (with pennants in Hebrew) and a stereotypically homosexual chicken (the sissy stereotype that was popular in pre-Code films, if you can believe it) as cheerleaders during the big game was cut. Despite this, the unaired ToonHeads special, The Twelve Missing Hares (a special that would have shown clips of the 12 Bugs Bunny cartoons that were supposed to be a part of the 2001 June Bugs weekend marathon, but were pulled for being too racially insensitive, even though most have aired on Cartoon Network and other channels before) had the offending clip (despite that it is not a Bugs Bunny cartoon, nor was it made when Bugs Bunny was created) as an example of how older Warner Bros cartoons had racial, ethnic, and, in the case of the homosexual chicken, sexual stereotypes that would be considered offensive by modern standards.

How It Plays Edited: Since the short is thinly-plotted with only the title song and some visual gags keeping it from falling apart, the edit doesn’t really make or break the short. What gets me, however, is the whole “Cartoon Network still used that scene on a special that never aired to illustrate the reason why the special -- and the cartoons within that special -- will never air” deal. And if it weren’t for amateur home media sleuths who ended up finding said lost special about banned cartoons, you would have thought that I was having a stroke or suffering from burnout while typing this.

Uncut version: 

Edited version (created by me as an approximation, as I can't find any actual footage):

Uncut clip as shown on The Twelve Missing Hares (all credit and blame go to Jerico Dvorak, whose YouTube channel is filled with lost and rare media. The controversial scene starts at 4:26):

Availability Uncut: Has been in the public domain since 1961, so you can watch it online without breaking any copyright laws. If that’s not your thing, then there’s always The Golden Age of Looney Tunes laserdisc from 1992 (volume three, side 7) or the Blu-ray version of The Mask of Fu Manchu, which was released this year (2024), where it’s a special feature.

 

Red-Headed Baby (The Black Dolly-a)

 

Director: Rudolf Ising

Summary: In this prototypical version of Toy Story, a baby doll (the titular “Red Headed Baby,” though, since it’s in black and white, how could anyone tell, besides using their imagination?) falls for a toy soldier, but a villainous spider has his many eyes on her first.

The Channel(s): TBS (in the days before Cartoon Network was created to air all the cartoons in the Turner Network library, so, before 1992)

Part(s) Edited: The ending celebration musical number (of which most of these musical cartoons have) was cut to remove all scenes with the Red Headed Baby doll singing the title song with two stereotypically black girl dolls (called “golliwogs” or “pickaninnies” in their day, though due to who’s directing this, they can easily be doll versions of Bosko’s love interest, Honey). This only applies to the redrawn, colorized version. I’m so sure the black and white version has never aired on television. If it has, then probably only once, either with or without the same cuts described here.

There's also a strange edit in the scene of Napoleon the toy soldier sword fighting the spider and getting conked on the head with a wooden building block. The scene goes from Napoleon getting hit with the block to him passed out on the ground with a pile of what I assume is wood next to him as the Red Headed Baby sobs for him to wake up. Was there supposed to be more to that scene? Was it cut because of the Hays Code (which was in force back then, but we're in pre-Code territory, so a lot of films, both popular and obscure, treated the Code as a light suggestion and got away with a lot before mid-1934, when things really started to crack down and would stay that way until the late 1960s, though the mid-to-late 1950s was when the Code's power started to weaken)? Was it cut because of time or pacing or a need to rush the short out as quickly as possible without consideration for quality? We may never know.

How It Plays With the Edit: Since I can’t find an actual edited copy of the short, nor can I find a colorized version to recreate, I’m just going to go by how I think it would go. It would be very choppy, getting rid of all shots of the Red Headed Baby and the black doll back-up singers. I can’t imagine any of the audio being saved and alternate footage being used to bandage up the cuts done, so you’re left with jump cuts and missing music snippets. As for the possible edit, I think I just described how it plays.

Availability Uncut: It’s another public domain short (been there since 1959), so the original uncut and black and white version shouldn’t be hard to find. There is also a redrawn version available, but it’s not the colorized edited version. That version is available on the 2006 DVD release of the movie Cimarron. The 2023 Blu-ray release is remastered, uncut, and in its original black and white format. If you’re looking for a copy of it on a Warner Bros compilation home media set, the most recent release of that is on the 1992 Golden Age of Looney Tunes laserdisc (volume three, side one, dedicated to Harman and Ising shorts).

Here's the full (probably?) version for all to see:

You Don't Know What You're Doin' (Suffering From Car Exhaust-ion)

 

Director: Rudolf Ising

Summary: In this, the debut cartoon of Bosko clone, Piggy, our title character takes his date, Fluffy, out for a night at the orchestra playing the title song. The date goes pear-shaped when Piggy mocks the orchestra for not knowing what they’re doing and gets a contact high from some heckling drunks.

The Channel(s): The edited version I found was from a channel called QTV, which could either be a channel in Scotland, The Gambia, or Pakistan. I’m going to go for Scotland or possibly The Gambia, because I can’t imagine a Pakistani channel airing this due to the sequence with the drunks (Pakistan is a Muslim country and alcohol anything is considered taboo to their religion).

Part(s) Edited: Light edit this time around: the part where Piggy’s scooter farts his exhaust in the snooty usher’s direction and the usher finding himself in blackface and doing the Al Jolson “Mammy!” plea to the camera cuts off before the usher finds himself in blackface, going from that scene to the curtain that reads, “Asbestos” and the band playing as Piggy and Fluffy come in.

How It Plays With the Edit: The edit is fairly obvious…for those who’ve seen the uncut version before. If you haven’t or aren’t familiar with the recurring gags in the earlier Warner Bros shorts, you probably wouldn’t know the scene was there. As always, here is a video comparison:

(original version)

(redrawn, colorized censored version)

Availability Uncut: While it has been in the public domain since 1959 and can easy be found on online video sites, “You Don’t Know What You’re Doin’” has had two official releases. It was first released in 1992 on the Golden Age of Looney Tunes laserdisc (second volume. It’s on side one of the disc called “Musical Madness,” which is an apt description of the short). Its most recent release was in 2008, on the sixth volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD, on the third disc dedicated to the early black and white shorts.