Believe It, or Else (Berth Defects)

 

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

Summary: A spoof of Ripley’s Believe it or Not, where viewers get to see strange and unexplained phenomena from around the world, from a man who speaks in moos after drinking nothing but milk to a wishing well in Arabia that’s not exactly helpful to a matchstick optical illusion that gets complicated. All the while, Egghead (which, according to the Looney Tunes Fandom wiki is a prototype version of Elmer Fudd) makes his skepticism known by carrying a sign that says, “I Don’t Believe It!” (despite that he’s able to ride in Buck Dodgers’ spaceship camper trailer and somehow survives getting sawed in half).

Fun Facts: 

• This is the last cartoon where the Egghead incarnation of Elmer Fudd was voiced by Danny Webb (“Elmer’s Candid Camera” would have Arthur Q. Bryan voice Elmer until Bryan died in the late 1950s).

• Buck Rogers is an actual pulp space adventure series and character. In the days before Star Wars and Star Trek, this was the space adventure series that was everywhere, whether people liked it or not. There’s even a Looney Tunes parody of it. You probably know it: “Duck Dodgers in the 24th-1/2 Century” (Buck Rogers was the 25th century) from 1953. Here, Buck Rogers is called Buck Dodgers (eh, close enough...)

Sorry, no “Letterboxd Says the Darndest Things” this time. The reviews weren’t funny or interesting enough for me to cut in...

The Channel(s): Cartoon Network, Boomerang, MeTV, and Tubi

Part(s) Edited: The entire scene of “the berth of a baby” (as in “a crying baby in a train car”) was cut because the two people who pull back the curtains just happen to be stereotypically black train porters.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): This simultaneously doesn’t grind my gears and does. It doesn’t grind my gears because this is one of those spot-gag cartoons that are just a flimsy excuse to show as many cheesy visual jokes and scenes that feel like a Family Guy-style cutaway joke with no set-up (in the days before Seth MacFarlane was even conceived) as possible, and cutting a scene like that isn’t going to ruin the flow of the cartoon. 

So what does grind my gears about this edit? That the censors chose to simply cut the scene. That’s not how you make memorably bad censorship cuts on TV. If it were me, I’d replace the scene of the black porters parting the curtains with a black screen (or freeze-framed the green curtains, then dissolved onto the crying baby). In fact, I did the former hypothetical edit just because I could (and because my first plan to crop the shot to get rid of the black porters didn’t work as well as I thought it would. I also was considering digitally removing the porters with AI editing, but the last time I used AI-based digital removal, it made the Toilet Duck scene from Father Ted look stranger than usual. I’m still learning all this AI stuff because it’s better than ignoring or protesting against it):

The blackout edit would make people think their television blew out or that there are technical difficulties on the station’s end. I’d much rather have that, since that can easily be turned into a meme or discussed as a collective childhood memory for 1990s kids online.

Video Comparison: 

Availability Uncut: Outlook not so good. As of this writing, the only way you can see this uncut legally is on the Golden Age of Looney Tunes laser disc from 1992 (volume three, side eight: “The Evolution of Egghead”).

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Good news: It’s currently on Tubi. Bad news: They somehow managed to upload the edited version instead of the uncut version, or better yet, just omit it, since Tubi doesn’t show a lot of the WB cartoons that have been phased out due to outdated racial and ethnic stereotypes. Worse news: It’s not available anywhere beyond that.

 

‘Til next time: Stay Looney and Be Merrie!

Pilgrim Porky (Catch of the Day)

Because Thanksgiving (United States version. I know Canada had their version in October and other countries don’t celebrate the holiday) is right around the corner, I decided to jump ahead and do a “Drawn and Quartered” installment for “Pilgrim Porky,” which came out in 1940 (I finished the 1938 cartoons and will start on 1939 after this, my report on “Holiday for Drumsticks,” and my report on “Patient Porky,” which is more-or-less a sequel to “The Daffy Doc”). Please enjoy, have a safe and happy holiday (assuming you celebrate it), and try not to fill up too much on turkey. Tryptophan knock-out is real.

Director(s): Bob Clampett (credited as “Robert Clampett”)

Summary: We see our porcine protagonist set sail from England to Plymouth Rock on the coast of Massachusetts in this historical parody of The Pilgrims leaving their native land for America. Plenty of visual gags and a running gag about a cook finding a big enough fish for the crew abound.

Fun Facts:

- The short has a gorgeous computer-colorized version that’s been under copyright since 1995.

- This did air on television, despite being one of many Warner Bros shorts that isn’t shown much on television or home media due to outdated racial stereotypes. If it didn’t, then I wouldn’t have it on my list, much less push it ahead so that way I can publish its Censorship Report on Thanksgiving (U.S. version).

- In yet another connection between Bob Clampett and Disney Studios (particularly the 1937 animated version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves), the narrator (voiced by Robert C. Bruce, who mostly played narrators of the WB and MGM Studio spot gag/newsreel parody shorts) says, “Heave-o, heave-o/It’s off to sea we go!” when Porky and the other Pilgrims set sail. No points on what that’s referencing, though you can click the link here if you truly and honestly don’t know.

The Channel(s): Nickelodeon

Part(s) Edited: All three scenes of the ship’s cook (meant to be a caricature of a black man, judging by the Eddie “Rochester” Anderson vocal impression Mel Blanc used and how much he looks like the elevator operator from “Patient Porky,” which I covered previously) were cut: when we first meet him and he dives in to get a fish; when we see him again, getting a medium-sized fish, only to be told by the narrator that it’s not big enough, and the end where a big fish swallows him.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): Since the cartoon is a pretty light affair, I don’t think the edits hurt the cartoon much…outside of the abrupt ending after the Native Americans meet Pilgrim Porky and his crew. For those asking, “Why didn’t Nickelodeon cut the appearance of the Native Americans?”, the answer is quite simple: it would have ruined the continuity. I’m so sure this is one of those cases where Nickelodeon had to leave in the Native American stereotypes because they were germane to the story, whereas the black chef looking for fish in the ocean was 86’d for not being germane to the plot (what little it had of it. It was mostly a Tex Avery-style spot gag short, only Bob Clampett directed it).

Video Comparison: I’m doing something special this go-around. Instead of my compare/contrast videos, I decided to take the short in question and do a full re-enactment of what it was like as an “edited-for-TV” version. I did use to do this with the Bosko shorts, but that was a long time ago (I am still planning on re-creating the videos and putting them in a library for people to view instead of having to sit through my gassing on about the cartoons in question):

Availability Uncut: This has been released on home media. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. If you want to (legally) see how beautiful it is in color, then you can find it on the DVD release of the movie The Fighting 69^th (which has a Looney Tunes parody title: “The Fighting 69-1/2th,” a one-shot Friz Freleng cartoon that shows red ants and black ants going to war over an abandoned picnic lunch. That does have a Censorship Report attached to it, but I won’t get to it until later, as that came out in 1941 and is also included in the DVD version of The Fighting 69^th), starring James Cagney, Pat O’Brien, and George Brent. If you want to see “Pilgrim Porky” in glorious black and white, then I recommend either the fifth volume and fourth disc of The Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set or the fourth disc of the Porky Pig 101 DVD set. No Blu-ray releases as of yet. It wasn’t released for reel-to-reel projector, and it wasn’t available on any official or unofficial VHS, Beta, or laser disc sets.

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Nope. No Amazon Prime Video, no HBO Max (or just plain “Max”) [both in the United States and Latin America/Brazil], no iTunes, no Boomerang app, and definitely no Tubi. As I mentioned in “Fun Facts,” this was rarely shown due to racial and ethnic stereotyping, even though most of the focus is on the stereotypically black ship chef and not the Native Americans Porky meets (at least when it comes to Nickelodeon censorship).

‘Til next time, Stay Looney, and Be Merrie.

The Daffy Doc (Crude Reproduction, Imperfect Frame/Signs of the Times)

 

Director(s): Bob Clampett (credited as “Robert Clampett”)

Summary: After causing chaos during an operation at the Stitch in Time Hospital (where their motto is, “As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Rip”), Daffy Duck decides he needs to prove himself a competent doctor…by knocking out, abducting, and performing unnecessary surgery on an unsuspecting Porky Pig.

Fun Facts:

- Going by the logline, this is one of Bob Clampett’s most twisted cartoons so far, but even he (and his colleague/frienemy Chuck Jones) thought the two inflation (nothing to do with skyrocketing prices and everything to do with an innocent animation gag becoming a sick fetish thanks to freaks and weirdos online airing out their dirty laundry…which they probably sniffed and shuddered orgasmically before they did it) scenes involving Porky and Daffy crashing into an iron lung was tasteless and shameful. Why? Because this was made when there was a polio epidemic and the vaccine wouldn’t be considered safe, potent, and for public use until 1955 (seventeen years after the cartoon was released in theaters) after being developed in 1952 (so…14 years later) by Jonas Salk at the University of Pittsburgh. It’d be like doing jokes about face masks, medical staff/facility shortages, and hospital respirators for COVID…or any AIDS/HIV joke involving gay men, heroin addicts, blood donors, or blood-donating gay male heroin addicts (which would have been a smash in the 1980s, but unbelievably offensive today).

- The lip sync for Daffy in this short is pretty much nonexistent (there are only two scenes where his mouth moves in sync with his lines), but I think that adds to the wacky and surreal humor.

- Daffy’s hopping walk as he’s following Porky is a reference to Dopey’s hopping walk during the “Heigh Ho” sequence on 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves from Disney. Don’t believe me:

Clampett vs. Disney -- Round One:

I guess Bob Clampett really did admire Walt Disney’s work, but also loved referencing/spoofing it, such as Mr. Meek blushing after Daffy kisses him (cf. Bashful doing the same when Snow White kisses him) on “The Wise Quacking Duck” (in fairness, that was probably a common trope back then, but the realization that the two scenes may be related due to Clampett’s love of spoofing Disney popped in my head when I wrote that and it’s easy to draw that conclusion, especially since [a] “meek” and “bashful” are synonyms (thank you, excessive thesaurus reading as a child), and that was the thought thread that led me to think, “Hey, Clampett might have ‘borrowed’ from that.” Yeah, my mind goes to strange places sometimes, but, as long as I find a justified reason why I would think that, or someone or something to challenge that belief, it’s not a problem, and [b] I made a video comparison of it):

Other examples of Clampett spoofing/referencing Disney include: the scene of the flying elephant holding up a sign that reads, “I Am Not Dumbo” on “The Bashful Buzzard,” the fact that Clampett did an African-American jazz spoof of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves called “Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarves” (originally titled, “So White…” but was changed due to audiences potentially mistaking it for Disney’s first animated feature film and possible legal repercussions from Walt himself), and “A Corny Concerto” basically being Fantasia if Termite Terrace did it. There are more examples; those are just off the top of my head.

- You can tell that Clampett was focusing more on Daffy than Porky in this one. In fact, a lot of the shorts made after “Porky in Wackyland” seem to have Porky in a limited role, despite him being the star. In this one (which can, at least, be forgiven because the title is called “The Daffy Doc”), Porky doesn’t appear until the four minute and 50 second mark…in a cartoon that’s six minutes and 59 seconds long (when shown uncut. The redrawn edited version has Porky’s appearance clock in at four minutes and 47 seconds in a cartoon that lasts six minutes and 34 seconds).

-”Patient Porky” is considered a remake of this, so I will be covering that the same way I covered “Milk and Money” vs. “Porky’s Prize Pony,” because both of them have been edited for African-American stereotypes, though “The Daffy Doc”’s version is more subtle.

The Channel(s): Nickelodeon, unnamed syndication (for those channels besides Nickelodeon that aired the redrawn-colorized version), and MeTV.

Part(s) Edited: Okay, time to break this down again. There aren’t that many scenes that were cut (at least, upon first glance), but Nickelodeon aired two colorized versions of the same short. No points on which version is the more severely cut:

- Nickelodeon initially aired the infamous redrawn-colorized version from somewhere in the 1960s, which shortened the part where Daffy holds up signs telling people to be quiet to remove the “Hush Yo’ Mouf” sign (which one blog identified as African-American vernacular English [AAVE], which, in my day, was called “ebonics” and does refer to Daffy reading it off as, “regrettable,” though it sounded more like Daffy said, “Shut yo’ mouth,” not “Hush yo’ mouf.” Still, I get where this person is coming from, but ten bucks says that this is yet another white person flagellating themselves over sins of the past. I have seen worse African-American stereotypes on better animated shorts) and the sign with Hebrew writing (in one of the rare times Nickelodeon edited something for having outdated Jewish stereotypes. The only other time was the scene in “Bosko’s Picture Show” where Hitler chases after Jimmy Durante with an axe because, in his twisted, genocidal mind, “long nose” equals “being Jewish”) which translates to Bill Holman’s “Silence is Foo!” from the Smokey Stover comic strip when shaken (for the curious monolingual with dreams of being a ployglot, “Zol zein shah!” actually does mean “Shut up” or “Be quiet!”, but not in Hebrew. It’s Yiddish, which is medieval German mixed with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic and other Romance languages. It does use the Hebrew alphabet, but mostly, I’ve seen Yiddish words and phrases spelled out in English).

This is the only censorship-based edit made in the redrawn-colorized version, because the next two cuts are simply because of shoddy workmanship:

- The next cut in the redrawn version comes when, after Daffy takes Porky’s temperature with a lollipop, Daffy decides to call in a consultation by hitting himself with a mallet, summoning two ghostly versions of himself (done with double-exposure effects) who discuss with the corporeal Daffy what to do about Porky and his “condition.” That scene was cut because it was too difficult to replicate in redrawn-colorized version. The redrawn version keeps Daffy hitting himself with a mallet, then cuts to him with a saw, trying to operate on Porky. The edit makes it look like Daffy anesthetized himself before operating on Porky (like on that scene from The Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror” from season ten where Dr. Nick injects himself with a sedative before giving Homer his hair transplant…or the season six Simpsons episode where Dr. Nick accidentally anesthetizes himself before removing Bart’s appendix), which…actually does fit in with how much of a danger Daffy is when he lives up to his name and has a job in the hospital that involves medically treating patients, up to and including performing surgery. Wow. One of the few times an edit improves a scene instead of dumbing it down or making it worse. The only bad part is the continuity error of how Daffy got the saw, though that can be written off as, “He got it off-screen” or “Sometimes, it’s best if a director doesn’t show you everything that happened.”

- The final cut comes during the infamous ending of Daffy chasing Porky with a saw and the two of them crashing into the iron lung, being spat out by the machine, and going through a comic body inflation cycle before the cartoon irises out. All that was cut on the redrawn-colorized version because (say it with me now): “It was too difficult to replicate.”

Fortunately, Nickelodeon aired a computer-colorized version in the 1990s where the only edit done was the “Hush Yo’ Mouf!”/Hebrew writing translating to “Silence is Foo!” scene to remove “Hush Yo’ Mouf!”

Decades later, when MeTV aired it, they aired it the same way Cartoon Network aired some of its shorts: first uncut, then edited, then back to uncut again (surprisingly, “The Daffy Doc” was not on that list of Warner Bros cartoons that went through that ordeal on Cartoon Network. It should have been, but I guess Cartoon Network didn’t know that “Hush Yo’ Mouf!” can be construed as a stereotypical way African-Americans say, “Hush your mouth!” [sarcastically]: And they’re usually so good with identifying objectionable content in otherwise family-friendly viewing…). Initially, “The Daffy Doc” was shown uncut on MeTV until January 2023, when an episode of their classic cartoon installment show, Toon in With Me, cut Daffy holding up both the “Hush Yo’ Mouf!” sign and Hebrew sign that translates to “Silence is Foo” when shaken. Two years later (2025), the scene was reinstated.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): The only thing that grinds my gears about the “Hush Yo’ Mouf!”/“Silence is Foo” part is how the MeTV version killed the joke. I wish they would have done it like Nickelodeon and just cut the first sign, or, better yet, just cut it so that way it goes from “Shhh!” to “Silence is Foo!” The rest of the edits don’t grind my gears as much because I know redrawn-colorized versions ruin great cartoons, especially those that are considered the best at being wacky and packed with wild takes.

Video Comparison: 

Availability Uncut: This one has a good run on physical home media.

- In 1985, it was released on the VHS and Beta versions of the “Warner Bros Cartoons Golden Jubilee 24 Karat” collection (on the video/Beta tape called “Daffy Duck: The Nuttiness Continues…” Of those videos, I had the Foghorn Leghorn one, the Sylvester and Tweety one, the Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner one, the Bugs Bunny one, the Speedy Gonzales one, the one showcasing the best cartoons directed by Chuck Jones, the one showcasing the best cartoons directed by Friz Freleng, and the one showcasing the best voice acting done by Mel Blanc. The Daffy one, the Porky one, and the Elmer Fudd one I never had. The Pepe Le Pew one is a gray area, because, while I never got the actual tape, I did ask someone to record some select cartoons off it in a tape trade back when I had a VCR and the “Pepe Le Pew: Zee Best of Zee Best” DVD wasn’t made yet).

- Eleven years later (1996), “The Daffy Doc” was released on a UK VHS called “Daffy Duck” as part of their “Looney Tunes Collection.”

- Ten years after the UK release (2006), it appeared as a special feature on the DVD version of The Marx Brothers film, Room Service (which featured a pre-I Love Lucy Lucille Ball. In fact, Lucille Ball did a lot of movie comedies before becoming more well-known as a TV star).

- A year after that (2007), “The Daffy Doc” was picked for the fifth volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set (on disc three, which celebrates Bob Clampett’s best works. This version also has audio commentary by Mark Kausler, who does point out that, later in their respective lives, Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones didn’t like the iron lung gags because they felt it was insensitive to polio sufferers).

- Four years after that (2011), it was on disc one of The Essential Daffy Duck DVD set.

- Six years after that (2017), “The Daffy Doc” was released as part of the Porky Pig 101 DVD set (since it’s technically a Daffy/Porky cartoon).

- Finally, eight years after that (2025), “The Daffy Doc” appeared as a special feature on the Blu-ray release of the movie, The Citadel, starring Robert Donat and Rosalind Russell.

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Yes. It was one of many Warner Bros shorts that used to be on HBO Max (then Max) between 2020 and 2025, and is now on Tubi as of 2025.

‘Til next time, Stay Looney, and Be Merrie.

 

I’d like to thank NotebookLM for helping me research and outline this and other Warner Bros shorts. It started off as just needed background material on the Porky/Sylvester horror vacation trilogy shorts, but I did find some interesting stuff on this short. Maybe I’ll do a regular, “analyzing Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies” shorts blog later, because you can learn a lot on how Daffy’s wacky persona in this short is different than it is on “The Wise Quacking Duck.”

Have You Got Any Castles? (Black Woollcott)

Director(s): Frank Tashlin

Summary: The second of Frank Tashlin’s “Midnight in the Bookstore” shorts (first is “Speaking of the Weather,” which I covered before, and the third is “You’re An Education”). This one is introduced by Alex Woollcott, includes The Three Musketeers breaking The Prisoner of Zenda out of jail, and Rip Van Winkle shutting down the latest après-minuit literary party because he needs his sleep (why? He’s had 100 years’ worth).

Compared to “Speaking of the Weather,” this is a bit heavier on the racial/ethnic caricatures of years past, but “You’re An Education” wins at the end of the day. Despite that, this short (and the other two)  did make its rounds on American TV and did appear on home media, as mentioned below.

The Channel(s): Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodie reissue version, TBS, Cartoon Network, and unnamed syndication (local affiliate stations).

Part(s) Edited: Before I get in on the edits done to remove racial/ethnic stereotypes, I’d like to start with the edits done on the Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodie reissue, which also applies to the syndicated versions and the versions shown on TBS and Cartoon Network.

Alex Woollcott (who was caricatured before on Tashlin’s “The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos”) did not like his caricature in this short, so he requested it to be cut when the short was reissued to theaters (which, coincidentally, happened after he died). This decision affected only two scenes in this short: the beginning where Woollcott introduces the literary performance and the end when he closes out the short, and the cuckoo bird is muffled while Rip Van Winkle continues to sleep (that scene was an innocent bystander that got removed because the Alex Woollcott scenes got deleted). The reissued version was the version that aired on television (when it did air on television), including TBS and Cartoon Network.

In addition to the appearances of Alex Woollcott, TBS’ version also cut Bill “Bojangles” Robinson tap dancing up and down the cover of The 39 Steps, the “Swing for Sale” part that was recycled from the Censored Eleven cartoon “Clean Pastures,” and both scenes of Rip Van Winkle cutting Uncle Tom’s hair to use as earplugs during the performance of the title song (with Uncle Tom punching Rip Van Winkle in the face several times and cutting his beard the second time).

If you can believe it, Cartoon Network actually aired this cartoon during their weekday morning installment show, The Acme Hour (which is a collection of Warner Bros., MGM, and Fleischer shorts with the intro, outro, and commercial bumpers showing what it’s like to be on the business end of classic cartoon slapstick, like getting hit in the face with a plank, falling off a cliff, having a piano drop on your head, wearing rocket-powered roller skates, covering a house with invisible paint, flooding a living room after using an ACME brand glass cutter on an aquarium, etc) and aired a version where the only edits made were to the bookend scenes with Woollcott, as well as the final image where Rip Van Winkle is asleep on the cuckoo clock after tying the bird’s beak shut, making this the closest that a Censored Eleven cartoon has come to airing on television in the United States because the “Clean Pastures” part with Cab Calloway singing “Swing for Sale” wasn’t censored. The short eventually got phased out and replaced with other cartoons, so, you know, pyrrhic victory.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit: It’s been a while, but we’re back with, “The edits are jarring, but since this is one of those thinly-plotted musical cartoons, it doesn’t affect anything else about it.” At least, when it comes to the “Clean Pastures”/“Swing for Sale” part that was edited on TBS. The reissue cuts will leave you wondering what was edited from the beginning and ending (though the ending cut is seamlessly done) and why if you’ve never seen this short before and know nothing of its history…then, when you find the reason, you’ll either still ask, “Why?” or just say, “Oh,” and carry on.

Video Comparison: You can tell that the Alex Woollcott scenes were supposed to be edited out because the newer version has film splice marks on it. The other cuts, well…let’s go to the video:

Availability Uncut: It’s on the Golden Age of Looney Tunes laser disc (volume 1, side 1: 1930s Musicals) and VHS (volume 1: 1930s Musicals), but it’s most likely the version that didn’t restore the Alex Woollcott scenes. Those scenes wouldn’t be restored until the Looney Tunes Golden Collection volume two DVD set. This also applies to volume two of the Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection (and all its repackaged versions, such as The Looney Tunes Collection All Stars, The Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection Double Feature [a repack of volumes two and three], and The Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection volumes 1-3 repack). It’s also a special feature on the DVD version of the movie Varsity Show, starring Dick Powell and Fred Waring, though I don’t know specifically if it’s the older version without Alex Woollcott or the newer version with him. The older version has become harder to find than the newer version, which is everywhere thanks to the short being in the public domain since 1967 and the relative ease in which one can upload the newer version on YouTube and let that proliferate (or “go viral,” in today’s terms).

Is/Was It Available on Streaming?: No, it isn’t. That also applies to “Speaking of the Weather” (which I covered prior to the news that Tubi uploaded the Warner Bros shorts on their service) and “You’re An Education” (which I’m covering in a future special post about cartoons with scenes that have missing scenes long before television censors got their hands on them. It wasn’t edited for anything on the one time it aired on Cartoon Network, but it was replaced with another cartoon on a rerun of the animation history show, ToonHeads, for the episode “Midnight in the Bookstore”). This shouldn't worry you, though, because it's a public domain cartoon and it can be watched on YouTube or on the Golden Collection DVD.

As an added bonus, here’s the actual, uncut version of “Have You Got Any Castles?”, complete with outdated racial stereotypes and scenes featuring Alex Woollcott:

And a censored version shown on a former WB affiliate known as WB18 (I have no idea what state had that as a channel. The closest I could find is either WBG18 in Wheeling, West Virginia or WVTV18 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin):

This version just cut the “Bill Robinson tap dances up and down The 39 Steps” and the “Swing for Sale” part (in very much the same way I did on the approximation video, only they left in the part where The Invisible Man and Topper perform a tap-dance number. I just assumed it would be cut for continuity reasons, like the part where they show Greta Garbo on the cover of So Big in yet another joke about how she had big feet for a woman), as well as the Alex Woollcott scenes. The Rip Van Winkle/Uncle Tom parts weren’t censored.

‘Til next time…

Porky the Fireman (Moments of Doubt)

Director(s): Frank Tashlin

Summary: Porky is a fireman who, along with his fellow firefighters, has to save a theatrical boarding house from burning down. Most of the cartoon is just visual gags centered on a harrowing situation like this, but they’re good gags and do showcase Tashlin’s skills as an animation director, which would serve him well when he did live-action years later.

The Channel(s): Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network (and possibly unnamed syndication) 

Part(s) Edited: The Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network versions both cut the scene of the falling white guy screaming, “Help! Help! Catch me! Get the net ready! Hurry! Hurry!”, going through a black cloud, and coming out as a caricature of Stepin Fetchit lazily calling for help as he now floats down. There is also word that the scene after that where Porky collects the flames and dumps them into a fishbowl, leaving the fish in blackface was also cut on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, but that’s the half-truth. The computer-colorized versions never edited that part, but a redrawn-colorized version exists where the “falling white guy turns into Stepin Fetchit” part is completely cut and the fishbowl part is altered so that way the fish are red instead of black (similar to how the matches were recolored red instead of black on “Wholly Smoke” -- stay tuned for that one. It’s coming), though I don’t know if that’s a censorship cut or yet another example of redrawns being so bad that miscoloring objects is common.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit: There’s nothing that grinds my gears about the edit (though you could still tell what the punchline was going to be…unless this is your first Looney Tunes cartoon and you have no idea of the racially insensitive jokes that the shorts used to have). However, there was a time where a lot of online commentators thought that the scene that was cut never existed in the first place. What’s worse is that I believed them and didn’t have that critical voice in the back of my head that said, “No! They’re wrong! Do research to make sure that the scene actually existed.” I’ve had faint whisperings of it, but I was firmly in the camp of “The scene might not have existed, and if it did, it’s lost to time.” Turns out when it was released on home media, the scene was real and any doubts I had vanished (plus, it’s fun to see online commentators be proven wrong with cold, hard, substantial evidence. Admit it).

Video Comparison:

Availability Uncut: As of this writing, it’s on two DVD releases: The Looney Tunes Golden Collection, volume 4 (disc 2) and the Porky Pig 101 DVD set (disc 3).

Is/Was It Available on Streaming?: Sadly, no. It’s not even available on digital download. I understand if HBO Max (“Max”) or Tubi won’t touch it, but this feels like it could have been available on iTunes or Amazon Prime Video before being taken off for racially-insensitive content, like with what happened to episodes of 30 Rock and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia following the George Floyd riots in 2020 when Hollywood finally realized that the blackface scenes they let slip by in their modern shows aren’t appropriate (though it did lead to an episode of Community getting cut because a dark elf costume was mistaken for blackface. I’m so sure the episode is back now thanks to viewer complaints). It’s just one part that’s the problem. But, hey, that’s what physical media and the Internet are for: to find evidence to lost media, whether it’s the actual media or witness testimonial.

‘Til next time…

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…