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.

Buddy The Woodsman (A Lesson in Chinese Cookery)

 

Director: Jack King

Summary: Just the typical post-Bosko musical fluff, with Buddy as a lumberjack, dealing with chopping trees, Chinese camp cooks, and a bear that wandered in from the forest.

The Channel: Nickelodeon (Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon, Nick@Nite version)

Part(s) Edited: Though Nickelodeon does edit to get rid of outdated East Asian (read: Chinese and Japanese, mostly) stereotypes (with some exceptions), they kind of split the difference here. We do get to see scenes of Chinese camp cooks saying nothing, but the part where one of them rings the triangle, announcing dinner in what I assume is broken English (sounds like straight-up, garden variety gibberish, but it could be interpreted as broken English with a Chinese [Mandarin, mostly. Cantonese and other dialects don't get the representation in Western film that they should] inflection) was cut. The Censored Cartoons Page and the Looney Tunes wiki do say that the edit was done with an obvious computer wipe effect, but the edited version I saw on Archive.org (which may or may not still be uploaded) had it as a simple cut that anyone can do, including me when I created the compare and contrast video.

How It Plays Edited/Video Comparison: It...actually plays pretty well without the scene. As mentioned before, there was an edited version on Archive.org, but it might have been taken down and since I didn't download it as proof that it was edited on Nickelodeon, I decided to recreate the cut to the best of my ability. As always, here's the video:

What Wasn't Cut That Should Have Been Cut: Definitely the totem pole creature dance. Not just because it could be offensive to indigenous peoples who have totem poles as part of their culture, but the scene just ran too long. I know Buddy cartoons have a reputation for being boring, but this is ridiculous.

Availability Uncut: As of 2024, there's no official release of this (and, because of the outdated ethnic stereotypes, there probably won't be, unless someone has the guts to use the content warning from the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVDs from volumes three to six for future home media releases and streaming). I found the uncut version on Archive.org (as well as the edited version that used to be there), so that's pretty much where it will be until DCMA requests take it down.