Porky at the Crocadero (Broken Chinatown)

 

Director(s): Frank Tashlin

Summary: Porky has big dreams of being a nightclub bandleader and starts small by getting a job as a dishwasher at the Crocadero. But when Porky gets fired for breaking the dishes and the planned entertainment gets canceled, will Porky and his diploma from the Sucker Correspondence School of Music save the night?

The Channel(s): Nickelodeon

Part(s) Edited: Nickelodeon did two edited versions of the same scene, each were more in the “use alternate footage to cover up problematic scenes” school of editing (which isn’t a correspondence school, but can be taught as a class in most film schools and on YouTube videos on video editing) rather than the “snip-snip” school of editing.

The scene: Porky Pig as Cab Calloway sings “Chinatown, My Chinatown.” During one of the scatting riffs, Porky goes from looking like Cab Calloway (blackface, white suit, and all) to running across the stage dressed as a Chinese emperor (I don’t know from which dynasty) with stereotypical Chinese facial features.

Edited Version #1: The black and white version from when Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon was a Nick at Nite show replaced the appearance of Chinese emperor Porky with a repeat shot of the patrons on the dance floor during the Guy Lumbago scene.

Edited Version #2: When Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon moved to the daytime and phased out their black and white cartoons in favor of redrawn and computer-colorized versions, the brief scene of Chinese emperor Porky was replaced with a frozen shot of the empty stage as Porky runs off it. Nothing was done to the audio on either version.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit: Very rarely do Nickelodeon edits to Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons grind my gears, because, with some of them, the edits are either seamless, have a sense of humor about them, or at least show that they tried to salvage the cartoon and that the cuts were done because they had to conform to what Standards and Practices wanted, and, if they could, they wouldn’t even bother with the cut in the first place. This is one of those examples where, yeah, it’s obvious that something’s gone, but you don’t care, because it could very well be a broadcasting mistake on their end (especially with the latter cut).

While Cartoon Network and Boomerang didn’t censor this cartoon, they also didn’t air it much because of the Porky as Cab Calloway part (which includes the brief scene of Chinese emperor Porky). My only memory of this cartoon on Cartoon Network was when it was shown uncut on Late Night Black and White (their late Sunday night/early Monday morning installment show that features black and white shorts, mostly pre-Hays Code Betty Boop and Popeye shorts, but they have shown the black and white Warner Bros cartoons that were either early Porky Pig shorts or those one-shot musicals that were a flimsy excuse to sell whatever songs Warner Bros studios had available in their library at the time). It was never shown as a color cartoon, and I can’t imagine what Cartoon Network or Boomerang would have done to edit it. They could go the Nickelodeon route, or they could have wholesale deleted the Cab Calloway performance, which, story-wise, is the point where Porky proves that he can be a great bandleader, since Cab Calloway was known for being that energetic bandleader that could rope you into one of his call-and-response songs.

EDIT: I stand VERY corrected, as I found a computer-colorized version (which I did use for the video comparison section to show how Nickelodeon cut it) from Cartoon Network that was uncut and uncensored.

Video Comparison: As the video shows, Nickelodeon’s versions (I’m assuming) were seamlessly done and didn’t detract from the cartoon as a whole. 

As a bonus, I’m going to include the computer-colorized version from Cartoon Network as evidence that this was uncut on that network.

Availability Uncut: As of this writing, it’s available on two DVD sets: The Looney Tunes Golden Collection, volume 5 (2007) and the Porky Pig 101 DVD (2017). It’s not on any video or laser disc set, nor has it been re-released on Blu-ray.

Is/Was It Available on Streaming?: As of this writing, no. It’s not even on the Tubi Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies collection, as it’s one of the shorts that wasn’t released because of outdated racial stereotypes.

‘Til next time…

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.