The Village Smithy (or They Shoot Horseshoes, Don't They?)

Director: Tex Avery

Summary: In a spoof of the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem “The Village Blacksmith,” Porky Pig is an apprentice to the titular Village Blacksmith, and screws up in getting his master a horseshoe.

The Channel(s): Nickelodeon

Part(s) Edited: Ah, the first Nickelodeon edit done because of violence and not outdated racial stereotypes or to trim the runtime for commercials (“Gold Diggers of ‘49” is a gray area. Yes, the shooting scene with the metal tub does count as a violence cut, but it also counts as dangerous behavior if you think that viewers are dumb enough to think that a metal tub will protect them from gunfire and most of the censorship attention in that short belongs to the scenes with the Chinese laundrymen, including the brief scene of them in blackface from car exhaust).

Anyway, the Nickelodeon version of “The Village Smithy” cut the part where the village blacksmith guns down the rubber horseshoe after he puts it in a vice and the pressure causes the scene to shake.

How It Plays Edited/Video Comparison: The way I cut it, where I deleted the shaking part as well as the shooting part and the blacksmith putting away his gun after using it, is probably what Nickelodeon did (I originally had the shaking part, then jumped to Porky coming in with the horse, but there was a typo on one of the title cards, so I deleted the file). If you ignore the minor continuity error of the horseshoe suddenly going limp after getting tightened and the skip in audio, then it’s not a big deal, as this video will attest:

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit: Not much. I mentioned the slight audio cut and continuity error as being potential tells that something was cut, but I remember seeing this when I was younger on Nickelodeon, and it didn’t stand out through my seven- to eight-year-old eyes and ears (and believe me, I do remember a lot of censorship cuts to Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons).

Availability Uncut: Not many places to find this uncut, even though it’s relatively harmless by modern standards. Its only physical media release is on the Porky Pig 101 DVD, and it was on HBO Max (n.k.a Max), but the collection of Looney Tunes shorts has been taken down as of 2025. Maybe they’ll bring it back with a new assortment of shorts, but that won’t be for a while.

Update: As of 2025, “The Village Smithy” is now part of Tubi’s Looney Tunes collection, where 786 out of the 1000 original theatrical shorts (and some modern shorts made from the 1970s to the 2000s) are featured.

Milk and Money (Out of My Stable Hands)

 

Director: Tex Avery (credited as “Fred Avery”)

Summary: Porky and his farm nag (worn-out horse) work in milk delivery to help his father save the farm from foreclosure. Thanks to a horsefly, Porky and the nag find themselves in a horse race with a cash prize for the jockey and his ride.

The Channel(s): Cartoon Network and Boomerang (the compare/contrast video does say “Cartoon Network,” but it also applies to Boomerang, since Boomerang airs/aired the same classic cartoons as Cartoon Network).

Part(s) Edited: A brief scene of the black stablehands leading the horses to the starting line.

How It Plays Edited/Video Comparison: With the way I edited it, I tried to make it so that way the horse immediately saw the horse race and went to the starting line (I also cropped the shot of Porky and the horse at the starting line to get rid of the black stablehand running off before the start of the race). I’m not 100% sure if Cartoon Network and Boomerang edited it this way, but let’s say, for the sake of argument, they did. If this is what Cartoon Network and Boomerang did, then the cut is seamlessly done and makes it look like the horse knew that the horse race was a last-ditch effort to earn money needed to save Porky’s farm (as opposed to the horse just wanting some oats and finding himself in the race completely by accident, which is funnier, as the whole thing is a comic misunderstanding).

As always, here’s a video comparison:

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit: Not much, except the fact that Nickelodeon and (possibly) MeTV, MeTV+, and MeTV Toons aren’t listed as possible channels that have censored this short. “Porky’s Prize Pony” also had a scene featuring a black stablehand walking by during the preliminaries to a horse race (it’s not similar or recycled from “Milk and Money,” as the Looney Tunes fandom wiki or the old Censored Cartoons Page has stated. I will do an addendum post about it) and those channels cut that scene. I’m going to chalk it up as, “It was edited on those channels, but there’s nothing to prove or disprove it.”

Availability Uncut: You can find this uncut, uncensored, and remastered on disc four of the fifth volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set, on disc 1 of the Porky 101 DVD set (which has every black and white Porky Pig cartoon ever made, including some that have never aired on American TV [or have, but were edited] due to outdated racial and ethnic stereotypes), and the Blu-ray version of The Devil Doll, starring Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O’Sullivan, and Frank Lawton, and directed by Tod Browning (the same Tod Browning who did Freaks).

I Love to Singa (Gogo Dancer)

Director: Fred “Tex” Avery

Summary: Another early Tex Avery cartoon that doesn’t feel in-character for him, but, unlike “Page Miss Glory,” Tex probably didn’t hate this one as much. This one is the story of an owl family that prides itself in classical music and opera, but are left reeling when one of their children is a jazz singer (back then, jazz was seen with the same disdain as rap and hiphop in the 1980s and 1990s: if you were white and into that, you were a disgrace to your family or a race traitor/poseur). When forcing the jazz singing son (named Owl Jolson) to sing opera doesn’t work, Owl gets thrown out and decides to make it on his own as a jazz singer. His first gig: a radio amateur hour, where anyone who doesn’t win over Jack Bunny (a very common pun name on comedian Jack Benny) gets rejected and ejected from the studio.

And if this short still isn’t familiar to you, the sound clip of Owl Jolson singing the title song was used on the very first episode of Comedy Central’s South Park ("Cartman Gets an Anal Probe") when Cartman is controlled by the anal probe and the cows use alien tech to make Officer Barbrady sing.

The Channel: TNT (on The Rudy and Gogo World Famous Cartoon Show)

Part(s) Edited: Two scenes were cut for time (as there wasn’t anything offensive about the two scenes cut):

1) After Owl Jolson is hatched and shocks his parents with his rendition of “I Love to Singa,” Fritz Owl decides that the best way to “cure” Owl’s jazz singing is to force him to sing “To Cilia,” which doesn’t work, as Owl keeps interjecting, “I Love to Singa” in between verses.

2) When Owl Jolson runs away from home, he happens upon Jack Bunny’s Amateur (spelled “Amatuer”) Radio Show, where contestants keep getting gonged and put through the trap door for bad performances.

How It Plays Edited/Video Comparison: The way I edited it on the video is probably not how it played out on The Rudy and Gogo World Famous Cartoon Show, but it’s one of those edits that Nickelodeon used to be able to do when it aired Looney Tunes cartoons: tried to salvage the cartoon and had a sense of humor about editing the shorts. If you remember Rudy and Gogo and how “I Love to Singa” was cut, then, by all means, describe it in the comments or email me. For now, enjoy the video:

Availability Uncut: This one is popular enough to be released on home media. I'm not going to list them all (a full list can be found here), but I am going to list the DVD and Blu-ray titles that have this short uncut, uncensored, and with original titles restored (if you've ever seen it on television, it was probably the Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodie version):

• Looney Tunes Golden Collection, volume 2 (on disc 2)
• Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection, volume 2 (also disc 2, which would be the last disc on that collection, since Spotlight Collections were the scaled-back version of the Golden Collection).
• The 2005 DVD release of the 1927 movie The Jazz Singer (which I don't recommend, not because of the blackface on the cover being potentially offensive, but because the version shown is the 1995 Turner dub that might not have the original titles to it). The 2013 Blu-ray release of the same movie does have the original titles to "I Love to Singa," so I do recommend that for the completionist Looney Tunes fan.
• Looney Tunes Collection All-Stars volume 3 (this is only available in Australia)
• The DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-ray versions of the 2006 animated movie, Happy Feet. (I know I shouldn't have included HD-DVD, since it pretty much lived and died in the mid-2000s because Blu-ray kicked its ass, but there are probably people out there who still have HD-DVD players for some reason).
• The DVD and Blu-ray versions of the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection (volume 1, disc 2)
• The Best of Warner Bros. 50 Cartoon Collection DVD
• The Looney Tunes Parodies Collection DVD (most recent as of 2025; it was released five years ago).

Is It Available on Streaming and/or Digital Download?: For digital download, it’s on iTunes Video. For streaming, it’s on Tubi (as of 2025). Strangely, HBO Max (both when it started out as “HBO Max” and when it was “Max” and both the United States feed and the Latin American/Brazil feed) didn’t carry this one, and I personally don’t know why.

Page Miss Glory (Matron Makes Most of Wardrobe Malfunction)

Director: Tex Avery (uncredited); Leadora Congdon (credited, though she was credited for layout and background work, as well as being the “moderne art” designer and conceptualist). It’s confusing, yes, but Tex Avery did direct this cartoon, even though he didn’t care much for it, as it was out of his humor wheelhouse (even though a thorough viewing shows that there are some Tex Avery-ish gags in this. They were most likely scaled back because the cartoon is more eye candy than a laugh fest).

Summary: The staff of a hicktown hotel await the arrival of a female guest known as “Miss Glory.” A bellhop, who has dreams of bellhopping for the more refined, upscale city hotels, falls asleep and gets his wish, leading to a big musical number and string of gags involving drinks, the excesses of the wealthy, the appearance of one “Miss Glory”, and how everyone there wants to see her.

The Channel: Syndication/local affiliate (WNEW in New York, circa the 1980s)

Part(s) Edited: Once again, I’m amazed at just what American TV censorship (whether from a major network or a minor affiliate station) finds objectionable in something that doesn’t seem it. This time around, we have this: Somewhere in the 1980s, WNEW in New York City cut the part where the bellhop thinks a snooty, Margaret DuMont-style society matron is the fabled “Miss Glory,” but isn’t, as she takes one look at him and walks away, not knowing the bellhop is stepping on the train of her yellow dress. When her dress strategically comes apart behind a potted plant (even though she is wearing a slip, it’s treated like nudity because of Hays Code restrictions and the fact that most slips are sheer/see-through), the matron decides to treat the audience to a fan dance, until we see that her slip has a patch on it. The consensus (at least on the Looney Tunes Fandom Wiki) is that the scene was considered too risqué for children/family audiences. I would have said because the scene ran long, but who says it can’t be both?

How It Plays Edited/Video Comparison: I did this approximation/compare and contrast video as the Looney Tunes Fandom Wiki worded the edit, which is as follows,

“When this short aired on New York's WNEW channel in the 1980s, the sequence where the snooty society matron's dress rips off (because the bellhop had been standing on it) and she does a fan dance with fern leaves to cover up was cut due to being too sexually suggestive for a family/child audience.”

To me, that means that, after the three butlers and the rural bellhop drunkenly sing the end of the title song, the edited version goes straight to the rural bellhop applauding something off-screen and the fat man at a table yelling for service. I feel that WNEW’s version did include the bellhop asking the snooty matron if she’s Miss Glory, but cut off before she walks away. Either way, the cut is very obvious for a scene that doesn’t make or break the cartoon’s already meager plot:

Availability Uncut: You’re in luck. This is available uncut (sadly, not in public domain, despite that the title song is, and currently not on streaming, even though this doesn’t have any problematic content. Maybe art deco is too pretty for today’s audiences) on the Golden Age of Looney Tunes laserdisc and VHS (volume 1, “1930s Musicals”), as a special feature on the DVD version of the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movie, Top Hat; on disc four (the most-requested one-shots) of the sixth and final volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set (and disc 2 of the shorter, more family-friendly Spotlight Collection DVD set); on the DVD and Blu-ray version of the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection, volume 2 (the Blu-ray version of which has become very hard to find); a DVD called Looney Tunes Musical Masterpieces, and a repackaged version of Looney Tunes Musical Masterpieces that comes sandwiched with Tom and Jerry’s Musical Mayhem and the Scooby Doo movie, Music of the Vampire.

The Cat Came Back (Plunger, Mousetrap, Poke 'Er Eye)

Quick note before I start: I know I said I was going to change up the blog and take it to a new direction, but I have five entries on the back burner formatted in the old style. For ease of transition (and because I'm still thinking of new ways [or a new way] to approach my entries), the entries to this short, Milk and Money/Porky's Prize Pony, I Love to Singa, and The Village Smithy will be in this style. After another full post covering a group of similarly censored cartoons (it will either be the Banned Bugs Bunny 12 or The Hunter's Trilogy), I will transition over to my as-yet new style (I am considering a podcast-style transcription with accompanying video and picture stills, but nothing is set in stone yet). So, enjoy these last five entries as they are.

Director: Friz Freleng

Summary: In this platonic version of Romeo and Juliet, a kitten and a mouse, despite being taught by their respective mothers that they and their kind are sworn enemies of the other, run off and become friends. When the two end up getting trapped in a sewer, will the two warring families put aside their differences and save their children?

The Channel: Unnamed syndication

Part(s) Edited: Going by the old Censored Cartoons Page and the Looney Tunes wiki, there are four parts edited for seemingly no reason (though at least one part has a justified reason for being edited).

• The momma mouse training her kids on how to run through a mousetrap without getting caught
• The momma cat getting poked in the eyes (and the momma cat poking the momma mouse in the eyes after thinking back to why they're enemies in the first place) [this counts as two cuts, and is probably the only justified edit, as eye-poking is often considered dangerous, imitable slapstick violence, especially if you've ever seen a Three Stooges short with the classic trio of Moe, Larry, and Curly]
• The momma mouse using a plunger to get the kitten and mouse out of the sewer.

Please Note: the accompany video refers to the momma mouse as a "momma rat." That's my bad for doing these on lack of adequate sleep.

How It Plays Edited/Video Comparison: Not too bad, though the eye-poking part being edited is obvious. Without it, there's no reason why the momma cat and mouse hate each other (besides the fact that cats and mice don't get along anyway). Here's the compare/contrast clip:

Please Note #2: I switched over to Filmora for this video because it works better. There's a watermark on it because I have the free version. Somewhere on this journey, I will get a paid version, but that's probably not going to happen. DaVinci Resolve is good and I will come back to it, but Filmora has better features and I will stick with it unless otherwise noted.

Availability Uncut: It is available for streaming (uncut, naturally. It's not problematic by modern standards, outside of some violence, drowning peril, and species discrimination, but it's cute and charming enough to get away with it) on HBO Max (now called "Max"). If you're looking for a physical release of it, there's only two choices: The Golden Age of Looney Tunes laserdisc set (volume 5, side 5, "Pesky Pets") or the Blu-ray version of the movie The Walking Dead (no relation to the graphic novel or the AMC series) starring Boris Karloff and Ricardo Cortez.

Update: As of 2025, “The Cat Came Back” is not on HBO Max (a.k.a Max) anymore. It is uploaded on Tubi.