September in the Rain (No Plot? Plenty of Problems!)

 

Director: Friz Freleng (credited as “I. Freleng”)

Summary: Your typical “midnight in the store” cartoon. This one is in a grocery store on a rainy night where the products and their label mascots come to life and do bits and musical numbers (some of which are recycled from other shorts, since Freleng did do that). It’s short, it’s sweet, it’s played straight, and while not that many people like it, I think it’s fine for what it is.

The Channel(s): TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, and on DVD.

Part(s) Edited: All the black caricatures are cut from this short, though the 1995 Turner dubbed version at least left in the Al Jolson “Dream of Wheat” (Cream of Wheat) mascot serenading the Aunt Emma (Aunt Jemima, now known as “Pearl Milling,” which yeah, does sound like the name of a U.S. Southern black woman and “Aunt Jemima” could have been her nickname when she became known for her pancakes or what her white slave owners called her) mascot with the title song. I’ve never seen that version; I’ve seen the version where every black caricature is cut and the cartoon, which already has a 5-minute, 47-second runtime, now runs at 3 minutes and 32 seconds (or 4 minutes and 36 seconds, if it’s the version where the Al Jolson/Aunt Emma part was left in, but not the performance of “Nagasaki” at the end).

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit: On the one hand, the cartoon was just a collection of musical numbers and light comedy bits, so complaining about how the edits ruined the cartoon is kinda stupid on my end (not as stupid as making an already short cartoon shorter, but that’s neither here nor there). On the other hand, it’s obvious that parts are cut because of the jump in music.

Video Comparison: Instead of doing one video showing the uncut vs. cut scenes, I’m showing the actual cartoon vs. the common edited version (Cartoon Network, Boomerang, TBS, TNT, and on DVD) and the 1995 Turner dubbed version (which probably aired on Cartoon Network, TBS, and TNT back in the 1990s, though it could have been made for unnamed syndication and some home media releases):

Uncut Version:

Edited Version #1 (version where all black caricatures are cut)

Edited Version #2 (version where the Al Jolson/Aunt Emma part is uncut, but the ending isn't):

Availability Uncut: Yeah, about the only place this is available uncut is The Golden Age of Looney Tunes laser disc (volume 4, side 10). The DVD version of the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movie, Carefree, has an edited version, though I don’t know which one (the one where all the black caricatures are cut or the one where at least the Al Jolson/Aunt Emma scene was uncut). It hasn’t been on television since…I wanna say, the early 2000s (last seen on Cartoon Network) because, even with the parts cut, it’s just filler. Be glad that the uncut laser disc version can be found on sites like archive.org.

‘Til next time…