The Film Fan (Empty Promises)

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

Summary: This is basically Friz Freleng’s “She Was an Acrobat’s Daughter” filtered through one of Clampett’s Porky Pig cartoons where Clampett can’t be arsed to put Porky in an interesting situation, but the cartoon itself is an interesting time capsule about what it was like to go to the movies in the 1930s (similar to “Bosko’s Picture Show” and “She Was an Acrobat’s Daughter”). In this one, Porky (who is supposed to be a kid character, but is shown as an adult) is out on a grocery run, but sees a “Kids Admitted Free Day” poster at the local movie theater and decides to partake. The rest of the cartoon is a string of gags involving movie trailers and situations associated with 1930s movie-going (my favorite is the one where a snooty society lady tells the audience that she and her dog don’t go to the movies [there were people like that back then, who thought the movies were low-class. These days, it’s only the half-truth, though the magic is fading as new technology, fatigue for the old, and audiences wanting higher quality continues to grow. I believe things will sort itself out, since there are people out there trying to change the movie-going experience], but the dog obviously makes an exception when he sees a poster for a movie about trees).

Fun Facts: 

• Porky’s coin-flipping walk cycle was recycled from “The Daffy Doc.” A bit obvious to be a fun fact, but it is amusing to point out, and it helps you see it for yourself to make sure I’m not just pulling facts out of my butt.

• The ticket taker is reading John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath during the scene of Porky finding out about the “Kids Admitted Free” day and running inside. There wouldn’t be a film adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath until 1940 (with John Ford as director).

• Some movie references for those who think the Golden Age of Hollywood started in the 1980s and 1990s (it didn’t, godddamn it!):

Ahs of a Wizard: The Wizard of Oz, obviously. The Oz books (by Frank L. Baum until his death in 1919, yet continued under different authors until 1963, known as “The Famous Forty,” and considered canon to the series) started in 1900 (that’s 126 years ago, for those keeping score at home) were 39 years old at the time of this short, but the movie that everyone knows (the one MGM produced that had Judy Garland as Dorothy) was released in August of 1939 (so, four months before this short).

Gone With the Breeze: Gone With the Wind (adapted from Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel), which was produced by...(gasp): Warner Bros. Studios, same place that also did the Looney Tunes! What’s more, this cartoon came out the day after Gone With the Wind premiered in theaters.

The Masked Marvel and Sterling: Sounds like a rejected Marvel movie, but it isn’t. It’s a reference to the Western serial, The Lone Ranger, with Sterling as a stand-in for the titular hero’s horse, Silver. If the footage from the trailer looks familiar, that’s because it’s recycled from “The Lone Stranger and Porky,” which, if you’ve been paying attention, was the first WB cartoon of 1939 and starred Porky Pig in it (even though the role was almost as small as the one here). We’ve come full-circle here, people, because this is the last Bob Clampett-directed Porky cartoon of 1939 (and, by proxy, the 1930s). “The Curious Puppy” from Chuck Jones is the last cartoon of the year and decade.

Letterboxd Says The Darndest Things: I know. I said I wouldn’t bring this back (at least, not as frequently), but this particular review from Brandon Reese (not Tim Brayton, surprisingly) has got me scratching my head on whether he likes it or not, considering he’s pointing out everything that’s wrong with it. Is this that “liking things ironically” trend I kept hearing about from 2010 to 2015?:

I like Clampett the satirist because he barely rises to the level of satire. The target of the gag where a bus pulls up and unrolls like a sardine tin to let dozens of people off is buses, if there even is one. It's less specific targets and way more just a vibe. He can't think of a specific example per se but you know what he's talking about when he says everything is sort of shitty and everybody's an idiot, right? That's the advantage guys in the 30s had from not growing up in a landscape polluted by Bill Hicks.

It's never a good sign when Porky is a child. Porky is a middle aged man somehow simultaneously henpecked and divorced. He carries that with him even in childhood and even though he looks more like a human baby than a pig. And yet this short persists. Porky is merely a framing device, here. Make him a teenager. Who gives a shit? The gags are good, which makes sense because this premise (Porky goes to the movies) is actually a flimsy excuse to invent Robot Chicken.

This short ends on an unbelievably weak note but I don't care because I had already decided I liked it at that point.

About the only thing I agree with him about is the fact that Porky looks like an adult here, but takes advantage of a “Kids Admitted Free” day at the movie theater. Either that’s a continuity error in a series that normally doesn’t have fans who care about them or Porky is taking advantage of “Kids Admitted Free” day because he’s young enough to lie about his age and the movie ticket takers don’t care (though they do care enough to send the manager to announce that Porky’s mom — and everyone else’s — notified the audience about a child who would rather take in a show than go out grocery shopping for the family).

In contrast to that, I found this review of the cartoon from “Eliza’s Review Blog” (which I used before as research on “The Daffy Doc”), whose writer does paint it as better than it is, despite being a thin attempt at recreating “She Was an Acrobat’s Daughter.”

The Channel(s): Nickelodeon (Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon, colorized redrawn version)

Part(s) Edited: A rather innocuous edit this go-around. The redrawn colorized version cut a brief scene introducing the Looney Tone (not “Tune”) News by Warmer Bros. (“The Newsreel With ‘Oomph’”), featuring newsreel anchor Dole Promise (reference to Lowell Thomas, who actually was a newsreel anchor, as well as a TV and radio broadcaster, a non-fiction writer focusing on biography and travel narratives; and a documentarian whose works turned T.E. Lawrence [a.k.a “Lawrence of Arabia”] into an international celebrity).

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): Yeah, this is one of those edits that doesn’t do anything to ruin the cartoon, but it does aggravate me when stuff like this gets cut for little to no reason. Since this edit happened in the redrawn colorized version, I’m going to assume the cut was done for the usual reason: because the redrawn-colorized versions of black and white shorts had the worst art and animation, and there were times where footage would be so unusable that it had to be scrapped.

There was also word on the old Censored Cartoons Page back in the late 1990s into the early 2000s that there may have been other cuts to this, like how there may have been a scene featuring the trailer for the double feature Honeymoon in Bali with The Old Maid that was allegedly replaced with a shot of Porky and two ducks watching the screen. That claim has since been debunked when the Censored Cartoons Page was revamped. I can see why people would want to believe parts were cut: because of either a tight budget or the Hays Office telling Bob Clampett they had issues with the joke, the actual scene showing that trailer either had to be cut or was only written or pitched as an idea, but never made. The cartoon does feel like it’s been stitched together (as I mentioned before: most of it is recycled from “She Was an Acrobat’s Daughter,” while Porky’s walk cycle from “The Daffy Doc” was reused) with random gags holding it together...though it’s not as bad as “Bacall to Arms,” which I will get to in the future.

Video Comparison: 

Availability Uncut: Today, I’d like to release a new format that I hope to keep for later posts. It’s a timeline showing the release years of a short, followed by any interesting notes. I’m doing one for the physical media releases and one for streaming and digital download.

“The Film Fan” Physical Media Release Timeline

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: It was/is on streaming, but not digital download.

“The Film Fan” Streaming Media Release Timeline

‘Til next time: Stay Looney and Be Merrie!

Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur (Clan of the Cave Duck)

 

Director(s): Chuck Jones (credited as “Charles Jones”)

Summary: A caveman who sounds like radio and TV comedian Jack Benny goes hunting for duck with his pet Brontosaurus, Fido.

Fun Facts:

1) This is Chuck Jones’ first Daffy Duck cartoon, though since this is the era of Chuck Jones being Disney-esque, it does suffer from being slow-paced and not as heavy with the jokes as what you get if this were a Tex Avery or Bob Clampett cartoon (coincidentally, Dave Monahan, who wrote this cartoon, worked with Tex Avery when he was employed at Termite Terrace). I think Letterboxd (whose reviews on classic Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts can be a bit harsh, though I mostly chalk that up to the writers completely missing the point) said it best here: 

“Largely dull earlier Daffy Duck cartoon that Daffy isn't even really in that much. It's most focused on a stupid caveman and his moron dinosaur…” 

There’s also this review, which…yeah, best to put that in a journal (an actual paper journal): 

“This one made me extremely sad as a child. Not sure why, it’s a rather sanguine affair. Possible that the implication of “billions and billions of years ago” sent my brain down a dark thought hallway. The idea that people used to live without McDonalds and television was really depressing to me as a kid, which is an unbelievably bleak thing to consider. People ask why this caveman and dinosaur didn’t come back in other shorts and I’m here to set the record straight. They died. “But Branson, why didn’t Daffy die, too?” Because he survived.”

Yeah. What the hell?

2) Though this is Chuck Jones’ first time with Daffy Duck, he’s already altering Daffy’s personality away from just being “the wacky duck.” It’s not the greedy, cowardly jerk Daffy just yet. It’s more “half-wacky, half-cunning,” especially during the climax with the overly-inflated duck.

3) There wouldn’t be another color cartoon starring Daffy Duck until 1942’s “Conrad the Sailor.”

The Channel(s): Cartoon Network and Boomerang (American feed only)

Part(s) Edited: About the most insignificant edit so far. The fade to black between the shot of the “For The Pause That Refreshes – Duck!” and the shot of the Jack Benny caveman and his brontosaurus, Fido, staring at the neon sign that reads, “Only 50 Ft. to the Duck” with an arrow pointing to the right was cut.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): EVERYTHING! There’s no reason this edit should exist, not even if it’s one of those “cut for time/pacing” edits. The jump in audio is obvious and there’s nothing offensive about a fade to black (unless it’s some kind of visual joke that ends in a stereotypical depiction of a black/African-American person). I haven’t been able to find a logical explanation of the cut from an outside source. If anyone out there knows why this was cut, please let me know.

Video Comparison: 

Availability Uncut: Fortunately for me (and you, the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies fan), this cartoon has been in the public domain since 1967, so it’s available on a lot of gray-market, unofficial home media releases (if you were a kid back when VCRs were around, you probably remember seeing this one a lot, alongside, “Yankee Doodle Daffy” [the one where Porky is a talent agent about to go on vacation, and Daffy holds him up by advertising a lollipop-licking child star as the next big thing in stage and screen], “Daffy – The Commando” [my first World War II cartoon, even though it wouldn’t be until sixth or seventh grade that I knew everything about it. It’s basically a less offensive, but still outdated and problematic version of “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips.” In fact, “Daffy – The Commando” and “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips” would make for a great WWII cartoon double feature], “Fresh Hare” [one of the four Bugs vs. Elmer cartoons where Elmer is fat to better match his voice actor, Arthur Q. Bryan. This one is to the Banned Bugs Bunny 12 what “Goin’ to Heaven on a Mule” is to The Censored Eleven: it’s not officially on there, but it does qualify because of the ending where Bugs, Elmer, and the Royal Canadian Mountie firing squad are in blackface. The main difference is that “Fresh Hare” did air on TV…with the ending censored, of course, before the short got phased out. Classic WB cartoon fans are still waiting for “Fresh Hare” to have an official DVD or Blu-ray release, uncut, uncensored, and digitally restored], and “The Wabbit Who Came to Supper” [another Fat Elmer cartoon; this is the one where Elmer has to keep Bugs as a pet due to an inheritance from a rich uncle]). If you want an official release of this short, then you can easily find “Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur” on:

• An Associated Artists Productions (a.a.p) Super 8 (year unknown, though assume it’s the 1970s or thereabouts)
• Viddy-Oh! For Kids Cartoon Festivals: Daffy Duck Cartoon Festival Featuring “Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur” (VHS, 1986)
• Cartoon Moviestars: Daffy Duck and Company (VHS, 1990)
• Golden Age of Looney Tunes (laser disc, 1992, volume 3, side 9: Porky and Daffy)
• Looney Tunes Golden Collection (DVD, 2005, third volume, disc four)
• Looney Tunes Collection All-Stars (DVD, 2006, volume 4 [Australia only])
• Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection (DVD, 2009, volume 7, disc 2)
• Looney Tunes Collection (DVD, 2018, volume 3 [Australia only])

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: If this short is everywhere on home media (both officially and unofficially) because of its public domain status, then it should be everywhere on streaming and digital download, right? Well, it is and it isn’t. While it’s very easy to find on YouTube, YouTube-style video sites, iTunes, and Tubi, you can’t find it on the Boomerang streaming app or HBO Max (f.k.a “Max”). They did used to have “Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur,” but Boomerang streaming ditched it in 2024, while HBO Max/Max ditched it in 2025.

‘Til next time, Stay Looney, and Be –

No, NO! Th-th-th-that’s not all, folks! Since this is a somewhat iconic short that a lot of people dismiss as boring because this was when Chuck Jones was trying to be Disney-esque, I wanted to tack on some bonus material. First, we have a compare and contrast of how the short was remastered from television to home media:

And here’s a list of Warner Bros. shorts that (at least in the United States) have fallen into the public domain due to not renewing the copyright in time or it never being copyrighted in the first place.

Now, we can Stay Looney and Be Merrie, ‘til next time.

Hamateur Night (I'm OK, You're UK)

 

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

Summary: A local theater holds an amateur night, where the acts stink out loud and only the best of the worst can win it (so...it’s an updated version of Into Your Dance from 1935). All the while, Egghead keeps interrupting with his rendition of “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain When She Comes” and getting pulled by the “get off the stage” hook that is a trope on cartoons like this (I know a more-or-less modern version of this is The Sandman [a man dressed as a circus clown] sweeping off bad acts with a push broom on episodes of Showtime at the Apollo).

Fun Facts:

- The Four Daughters mentioned in the marquee gag at the beginning is a real movie. It’s a 1938 romantic drama about a charming, young stranger and his bitter, cynical composer friend upending the lives and loves of a happy, musical family. The four daughters were played by Gail Page and The Lane Sisters (Priscilla, Rosemary, and Lola). 

- Phillip Kramer, a radio comedian known for his work on the radio show, The Grouch Club, was the voice of the canine emcee in this short.

- This cartoon premiered alongside the feature film, They Made Me a Criminal, starring John Garfield, Claude Rains, and a group of New York City Broadway actors known as The Dead End Kids (and also known as The East Side Boys, The Tough Little Guys, and The Bowery Boys). It was also directed by Busby Berkeley, who is known more for doing musical films featuring elaborate, geometric set pieces and beautiful showgirls on parade. You probably have heard of some of them: 42nd Street, Footlight Parade, Gold Diggers of 1933, Dames, and Fashions of 1934.

The Channel(s): BBC (as part of Rolf Harris Cartoon Time)

Part(s) Edited: Hurray, it’s yet another edit done for time/more commercials rather than for objectionable content (though, considering that the United Kingdom is stricter in what’s appropriate for children’s/family audiences than the United States is, an argument can be made that the “Four Daughters with Selected Shorts” pun could be considered risqué, but that’s by American standards, not UK). When this cartoon aired on the BBC’s show Rolf Harris Cartoon Time (now considered problematic since the show’s host was later outed to be a paedophile [spelling it the British way this time around. I know this isn’t the American way]), the beginning with the Four Daughters marquee and the band warming up was cut, going straight from the titles to the canine-looking host introducing the show and Egghead twice interrupting with “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain” before getting the hook…twice.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): Like many edited for syndication cuts before it, just the fact that there’s nothing about the cut that would warrant the scene being cut other than “We need to trim this for time.” On top of that, cutting it so that way it starts with the host introducing the show doesn’t make or break the scene. Viewers will still know (by virtue of the title and what the new opening scene is) what’s going on. Then there’s the fact that Swami River’s act was never cut on UK TV, despite the UK having rules against showing content that could be insensitive to minority audiences, and that does include outdated, stereotypical depictions of racial and ethnic groups that were once okay to show, but now aren’t. If HBO Max in the U.S. could pull “Hamateur Night” for that reason (meanwhile, MeTV didn’t censor that scene and Tubi actually showed the cartoon, despite not airing many WB shorts with racial and ethnic stereotypes and showing “Believe It or Else” with edits – stay tuned for that one), then what exactly was stopping the UK from doing the same?

Video Comparison: 

Availability Uncut: Bad news: its physical media history doesn’t look too good. It was on the Golden Age of Looney Tunes laser disc and VHS in the early 1990s (both on volumes centered around Tex Avery’s best work at Termite Terrace) and didn’t get another release until 2023, where it appeared on the second volume of the Looney Tunes Collector’s Choice set, as well as the repackaged version from 2024 that includes all four volumes. Good news: it’s a public domain short (has been since 1967), so you can watch it on YouTube, other video sites, and the occasional gray-market home media release.

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Yes. As I mentioned before, this was on HBO Max for a limited time in 2020. A year after that, it was streaming on WarnerMedia RIDE until 2023, which did seem to welcome some controversial shorts, but not all of them. Since 2025, “Hamateur Night” is on Tubi’s Looney Tunes channel, uncut, uncensored, and remastered.

‘Til next time, stay Looney and be Merrie.

Porky's Party (Ain't N-N-No Party Like a P-P-P-Porky Pig Party, 'Cuz a P-P-Porky Pig Party Don't S-S-S-Doesn't End)

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

Summary: Porky is having a birthday party, where he must deal with a Chinese silkworm that creates lingerie if you say “sew,” a penguin who swallowed a top hat that won’t stop popping up, and a drunk dog that’s been mistaken for rabid. Why can’t any of my birthday parties be this fun?!

Fun Facts:

• This short was originally titled, “Porky’s Birthday Surprise!”
• Chuck Jones’ work in this short (particularly the scene of Porky’s pet dog, Black Fury, getting wasted on an alcohol-based hair tonic in the bathroom) was so good, he was granted a position as director later in 1938.
• The storyboards on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, volume 3 special features originally showed that Gabby Goat (Porky’s comedy partner in such shorts as “Porky and Gabby,” “Porky’s Badtime Story,” and “Get Rich Quick Porky” -- all from 1937, with “Get Rich Quick Porky” as the only short that’s fallen into the public domain) and Petunia Pig were supposed to be in this short as the party guests, but, for whatever reason, were replaced with a goofy, prank-playing goose and an irritable penguin.

The Channel(s): Nickelodeon

Part(s) Edited: Here we go again, another batch of redrawn-colorized version edits. This time around, there are no issues with outdated racial stereotypes (unless you count the bucktoothed Chinese silkworm, whose appearance, surprisingly, was not a problem when this aired on Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and, I’m going to assume, MeTV), but parts are missing (READER NOTE: These scenes weren’t edited when Nickelodeon aired the computer-colorized version of this short).

Cut #1: The scene of Goosey helping the penguin flatten the top hat that keeps growing from his head (including using the penguin as a battering ram and running him into the wall) was shortened.

Cut #2: When Porky freaks out over a rabid dog (not knowing that it’s Black Fury drunk and with shaving cream all over his mouth) and runs into the closet (with Black Fury close behind), Nickelodeon cut the short scene of Porky lighting a match to see that Black Fury is behind him in the closet.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit: The first edit grinds my gears more than the second edit. With the second edit, I can chalk it up as “Nickelodeon doesn’t want kids lighting matches in small spaces, because that’s dangerous, imitable behavior.” The first edit is just slapstick and not all that violent (though some might argue that it is imitable, considering that it’s easy to pick someone up and use them as a battering ram. Even if it takes two or more people to hold the person up, it can be done if you’re drunk and/or you believe in yourself), so why would it be cut? Some theories include, “The redrawn-colorized version got rid of scenes that had lively and frenetic animation because the people doing the redrawing couldn’t copy Bob Clampett’s style at the time” and the ever-popular “The scene ate a lot of clock that could be better used for commercials, station ID interstitials, promos for other shows, some movie trailers, and other cartoons, so some of it had to be trimmed for pacing.”

Video Comparison: Once again, I found a redrawn-colorized version that actually aired on Nickelodeon. Please excuse the Filmora watermark; something happened that caused me to revert to the free version instead of the paid version. Until I can get it fixed (or I give up, whichever comes first), I will be using Da Vinci Resolve for all my videos on this blog and the A.I.-generated Snow White project (currently on hiatus due to outside obligations, but it will be back before the end of the year at the earliest and the start of 2026 at the latest):

Availability Uncut: The computer-colorized version was available on a 1992 VHS called “Porky Pig: Days of Swine and Roses.” The original black and white version can be seen on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set (volume 3), with the original storyboard available as a special feature and DVD commentary by John Kricfalusi (Bob Clampett’s fan and protégé; while he can be annoying about his love for the man, I do like that he picks up on how Clampett mixes in the childlike vibe with risqué humor in this short, as seen with the Chinese silkworm creating women’s lingerie or the dog getting drunk on hair tonic. Shame he didn’t include it more in his works, opting instead for weirdness and gross-out humor that feels inappropriate for kids) and Eddie Fitzgerald (who worked on Ren and Stimpy with John K and seems to me like he was influential too…at least when it came to the character design. The “What a Cartoon!” short “Tales of Worm Paranoia” really scream, “Hey, that’s Ren and Stimpy’s style…at least after John K was let go.”), as well as the Porky Pig 101 DVD.

Is/Was It Available on Streaming?: Sorry, no. No HBO Max/Max releases (not even in Latin America and Brazil, where a lot of the shorts that were too spicy for America ended up), no digital download availability, and definitely no appearance on Tubi.

‘Til next time… 

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.