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Edited: Like “Goopy Geer,” Cartoon Network cut a small part near the beginning to remove a character now seen as an outdated racial stereotype. LIke “Freddy the Freshman,” the outdated racial stereotype is Jewish.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).