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.