Rhythm in the Bow (The Quartet Offensive)

Director: Ben Hardaway

Summary: Lots of musical gags involving Great Depression-era hobos and the trains on which they hitch rides...at least until the lead hobo who can play the fiddle gets kicked off the train and wanders the countryside, where an angry dog goes after him.

The Channel: unnamed syndication and Nickelodeon (Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon, Nick@Nite edition) [Allegedly]

Part(s) Edited: Now, we come to the part of the job I love when it comes to blogging about censored cartoons: discovering and debunking claims. Yeah, I may have done it before with past cartoons, but this one is special, because Nickelodeon actually aired this one uncut.

According to the Looney Tunes wiki, Nickelodeon once ran this (either after it aired uncut or before. It's currently unknown) with a cut to the part where the four hobos singing the title song go through a tunnel and come out in blackface. It also aired edited on syndicated TV versions that most likely aired as filler on unnamed and long-gone local stations, but it's the Nickelodeon version that gets me, because, while looking for an uncut version to do my compare/contrast videos, I found a version from an airing of Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon that was uncut and uncensored, well, except for this opening card seen here:

How It Plays Edited/Video Comparison: Because I love you (and want to show you evidence that this did air uncut on Nickelodeon), I'm going to show you the full cartoon (click here) and the compare/contrast video (seen below):

What Wasn't Cut That Should Have Been Cut: Some of the dangerous behavior involving trains, particularly the hobo skating behind the moving train. Oh, wait. It was the 1990s and concerns over people getting killed by trains (either because of suicide or just being careless) wasn't a thing yet. Yeah, that can stay.

Availability Uncut: As of 2024, this doesn't have an official home media or streaming release, which is odd, because, outside of the blackface part, there's nothing really offensive about it. Archive.org has the Nickelodeon uncut version...for now, anyway.