Billboard Frolics (Shokus All Night Long)

 

Director: Isadore "Friz" Freleng (credited as "I. Freleng")

Summary: It is a "things come to life and put on a show" cartoon, but instead of a grocery store or a bookstore, it's an alley filled with billboards on or around buildings. There is a story of a baby chick from one of the ads getting chased by an alley cat after getting owned by a worm in an apple, but that's buried beneath all the other gags. Probably the only noteworthy thing about this short is that this is the first appearance of "Merrily We Roll Along," which is one of two theme songs associated with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons. While it doesn't really matter now since both are used interchangably, I'd like to remind casual fans of classic cartoons that the Merrie Melodies' theme is "Merrily, We Roll Along" while Looney Tunes' theme is "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down," which was heard on the 1937 short "Sweet Sioux," but wasn't used as the Looney Tunes theme until "Rover's Rival".

The Channel: Home media release (Shokus Video's Cartoon Collection, third volume)

Part(s) Edited: Curiously, the scene of the baby chick getting inflated with a tire pump while chasing the worm from the apple was cut. A scene of mild slapstick like this normally wouldn't be cut on television, much less home media release, so I'm as lost as you are when it comes to explaining why it would be edited. I'm just going to assume that this is either a time/pacing cut brought on by either the cartoon going on for too long or, since Shokus Video is one of those gray-market public domain video companies that probably took some cartoon shorts that were still under copyright, some parts had to be trimmed for legal reasons (though if that were the case, why was the beginning with Eddie Camphor and Rub-Em-Off singing "Merrily, We Roll Along" not cut? Seems like the easy target).

Looney Tunes Wiki also claims that there may be a cut between the woman's underclothes dancing and the scene of the chick in the billboard ad chasing after the worm, but I'm going to cover that on my blog page about cartoon shorts that may have been edited, but there currently is little to no evidence of the deleted scenes existing.

What Wasn't Cut, But Should Have Been: The cigarette-smoking penguins doing the same dance as the wooden ducks on "Beauty and the Beast," only now the snow is abrasive, powdered cleanser for sinks and bathroom fixtures rather than soda crackers being put through an electric fan. I could see some unnamed syndicated versions doing it, but mostly, I see Cartoon Network and Boomerang temporarily editing this because one of their taboos is showing characters smoking cigarettes. I say "temporarily" because I can see this being shown edited initially, then shown uncut before getting phased out.

How It Plays Edited/Video Comparison: Going by how I edited it (based on what Looney Tunes wiki states), it looks obvious that something's missing. This is evident in the audio side of things rather than the visual, but I will let you, the viewer, judge for yourself.

Availability Uncut: Besides the Shokus Video's Cartoon Collection print, there are versions of this short that are available uncut and uncensored. The version I used for the compare/contrast video is from MeTV (an over-the-air channel that airs classic cartoon shorts, as well as older live-action TV shows) and that version is uncut (barring the alleged edit I mentioned above). The Golden Age of Looney Tunes laserdisc (volume 4, side 10) had this uncut, as well as the 2005 DVD release of the film Captain Blood, starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. It used to be on Max (formerly known as "HBO Max") when the streaming service was first released in 2020, but it has since been pulled. Why? I don't know. There's nothing problematic about it (unless you count the Rub-Em-Off, the Russian violin [or "wioleen"] player, but most don't. I feel this might have been dropped because no one was streaming it, which is a shame, because it does look good restored). As of this writing, it hasn't been released anywhere else besides those places, but things could change.

Lost Episode: You're Too Careless With Your Kisses! (I'm Too Careless in Keeping Track)

Sometimes, when it comes to keeping a blog or researching, there will be omissions, mistakes, and new additions that weren't caught the first time around. The following is a "lost episode" of Drawn and Quartered showing the rundown of edits done to the 1932 Merrie Melodie, "You're Too Careless With Your Kisses!". In the Warner Bros. cartoon filmography, this short was released after "Bosko the Lumberjack" (which was covered as an installment of Drawn and Quartered) and "Ride Him, Bosko!" (which wasn't edited for anything in syndication or on any known television channel, domestic or international).

Director: Rudolf Ising

Summary: The drunken antics of her husband drives a female honeybee to go out and collect honey for herself...until a spider traps her in his home.

The Channel: WKBD in Detroit, Michigan (now CW Detroit 50)

Part(s) Edited: Back in the 1980s, WKBD cut the beginning of the cartoon where the female honeybee's husband drunkenly stumbles home from a night out and tries to slip in without her knowing, but fails (some things never change). While the Looney Tunes wiki says the cut was done for time (which I partially believe, since the scene did eat more clock than it should have, but the early cartoons weren't shining paragons of pacing), I personally think this was done to de-emphasize the fact that the male honeybee is a drunk.

How It Plays Edited: It's pretty obvious that something's edited from a story perspective. That drunken stumble home establishes the character and his flaw. They're lucky they didn't cut how the flaw affects his love interest.

Video Comparison:

Availability Uncut: The good news: this is a public domain cartoon, so you can watch it on YouTube (or any other video site) without worrying over copyright claims. The bad news is that it was available on two media releases (the Golden Age of Looney Tunes laserdisc [volume 5, side 1: "Black and White Classics"] and streaming on WarnerMedia RIDE), but the Golden Age of Looney Tunes laserdisc has long been out of print and WarnerMedia RIDE (which became Warner Bros. Discovery RIDE) shut down in October of 2023.

Golddiggers of '49 (Of Mice and Laundrymen/Shot-Tub Party)

Director: Fred Avery (you probably know him better under the name "Tex Avery")

Summary: Yay! We're finally into the fast-paced, gag-packed, irreverent side of Looney Tunes cartoons (a.k.a, the kind everyone remembers and can quote better than most classic episodes of The Simpsons). It's not a perfect start, but it's still a start. We still have a ways to go, but it's not an anodyne musical or a Buddy cartoon. Anyway, this cartoon is a Beans the Cat cartoon (but really features Porky Pig more) where it's the Gold Rush and Beans finds the mother lode, which means everyone in town (including some Chinese laundrymen) want a piece of the action.

The Channel: Nickelodeon (both the Nick@Nite black and white version and the computer-colorized daytime/weekend version of Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon).

Part(s) Edited: Today, we have two titles for two cuts that were done. Let's start with "Of Mice and Laundrymen": Both the Nick@Nite and the daytime versions of Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon cut all scenes featuring the Chinese laundrymen digging for gold just like everyone else, including one scene where the laundrymen riding on a rickshaw -- because, why not? -- are trailing behind Porky's junker of a car and get covered in a cloud of exhaust where they turn into (who else?) Amos 'n Andy from the radio show of the same name, complete with blackface and ethnically iffy voices.

On to "Shot-Tub Party": Nickelodeon's daytime version (which was computer-colorized in the 1990s, as opposed to the horrid 1960s redrawns that managed to suck all the fun out of the animation, especially in the black and white Bob Clampett shorts) not only edited the scenes with the Chinese laundrymen looking for gold, but also cut the part where Beans shoots at the villain with his rifle, the bullets hit the villain's backside into a drop-seat onesie-type opening, which reveals that the villain didn't get hurt because his butt was protected by a metal tub. I'm...guessing this was cut because it looked too inviting to impressionable viewers to imitate? Yeah, I know Nickelodeon cut gun violence and dangerous behavior just like any other American TV channel at the time, but this only makes partial sense to me. Did they really think most kids back then had metal tubs just randomly lying around, looking to make for an ineffective shield for bullets?

How It Plays Edited: Considering the fast pace of the cartoon, the edits do come off as seamless and they were more joke scenes than plot scenes. However, the jump in audio should tip you off that there's something missing (on all three edits). As always, here's a video comparison.

Availability Uncut: You have three choices: you can enjoy it as a special feature on the DVD release of the film Gold Diggers of 1935, or on the fourth disc of the fifth volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD, or as part of the first disc of the Porky Pig 101 DVD.