Detouring America (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the United States/Big Chief Baby)

 

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

Summary: A travelogue spoof showing viewers a tour of the United States, from literal cow-punchers in the rolling plains to mosquitos in the Florida Everglades and a human fly attempting to climb the Empire State Building.

Fun Facts:

• This is Termite Terrace’s second Oscar-nominated short (the first one being “It’s Got Me Again” from all the way back in 1932), and, like “It’s Got Me Again,” “Detouring America” got beat out by a Disney short. In this case, it was their adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Ugly Duckling.”

• This isn’t to be confused with “Cross-Country Detours,” which is also a travelogue spoof that has been edited on American TV, but that one is funnier and has a scene that a lot of people remember for lascivious reasons. If you know it, you know it. Otherwise, you’re going to have to look it up for yourself or wait until I get to it.

Letterboxd Says The Darndest Things: Oof! You’re not going to find many fans for this one, mostly because the reviewers know nothing about past celebrities and get easily offended over the outdated racial and ethnic caricatures. There was one review worth posting here that does make a good point, but I feel like every “anti-establishment” stand-up comic has made this joke at least once or twice in their careers, so it’s not exactly anything new (and, if they haven’t, shame on them. I thought their job was to smash the system with humor):

Greed, animal abuse, military propaganda and racism. I guess they really showed America as it is.

Yeah, the greed was a gag involving a California prospector finding gold and trying not to draw attention to it, only to fail when everyone else moves in on his territory, the animal abuse is either a mosquito screaming “OUCH!” after being swatted by an explorer in the Florida Everglades or a cow literally getting punched by a cow-puncher who sounds like then-popular comedian Jerry Colonna (who has been caricatured a lot in these old cartoons and even did the voice of the Mad Hatter’s buddy, the March Hare, on the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland); the military propaganda is just a look at a military academy where the soldiers from the waist up look ready for battle, but their legs and feet aren’t (it’s making fun of the military, not advocating it); and the racism isn’t as terrible as they make it out to be. It’s still potentially offensive, but it’s just a product of its time, as mentioned in those Looney Tunes DVD warnings they’ve had ever since Looney Tunes Golden Collection, volume three.

It’s like no one knows what nuance, history, or humor is anymore. Anyway, enough whining. Let’s get to why you’re here: to see what was cut and why.

The Channel(s): Cartoon Network and Boomerang (Associated Artists Productions transfer). Even though the labels say that this was also cut on TBS, TNT, and MeTV, the Looney Tunes Fandom Wiki doesn't say that those channels edited this short, I'm assuming they did, if they didn't outright ban it.

Part(s) Edited: Two scenes featuring outdated racial and ethnic stereotypes were cut:

• After the second check-up on The Human Fly’s climb up the Empire State Building, the uncut version had a scene where we go to Alaska, where a poor, black man is thumbing a ride while singing “Carry Me Back to Ol’ Virginny.” An Inuit (or “Eskimo,” as they were known back then) walks up, looks at the camera, shrugs his shoulders, and literally carries the black man to the Virginia state line. In my opinion, that’s actually sweet of him to oblige, despite their racial and geographical differences, but, considering how pro-slavery “Carry Me Back to Ol’ Virginny” is lyrically, yeah, it does kind of ruin it. Still, just the fact that the scene comes off as sweet at face value in something from 1939 shows that humanity and its history isn’t as awful as others claim.

• The second edit comes after the third check-up on The Human Fly, where we go to a Native American village in the American Southwest. Despite claims to the contrary (which have been debunked on the Looney Tunes Fandom Wiki, though not the old Censored Cartoons Page), the entire sequence with the Native American village wasn’t cut. What was cut was one scene where a Native American woman has her overgrown son on her papoose and tells him that it’s time to cut the umbilical cord and walk on his own, with the overgrown son whining that he doesn’t want to (still relevant these days regardless of race or ethnicity). The other scenes, like the Native Americans walking vertically down a cave village, the elder slithering out of a teepee after going inside for some “Wa-Hoo Snake Oil,” and an Indian snake dance involving actual snakes.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): Nothing. It’s one of those spot-gag cartoons where it’s just a collection of jokes tied to a central idea. Even I didn’t notice that those scenes were gone until much later (though that’s because the censored version aired more on American TV than the uncut version and doing that does condition you into thinking it’s uncut...until you learn years later that it’s not). The completist who likes their past media uncut and uncensored (or close to it, as a lot of scenes do get lost to time or were only thought of, but never made real) might hate the edited version for “erasing history,” but, if the cartoon is as bad as Letterboxd says it is, then what’s the point of fighting over a censored scene if you don’t care much for the cartoon it’s attached to?

I should also note that the vintage cinema channel, Turner Classic Movies (which does air some of what Cartoon Network and Boomerang airs, often with cuts, though some are uncut for historical reasons, like Herr Meets Hare) did air this uncut back in 1999. It’s not really a ground gear, but it should raise some ire over the hyprocisy of American censorship (or really, censorship in general, geography nonwithstanding).

Video Comparison: 

Availability Uncut: Yeah, this one is strictly a mainstay on home media. For those who want it on a Warner Bros. cartoon compilation set, it’s on the fifth volume and second side of the Golden Age of Looney Tunes laser disc (which was still going on in 1997, which surprises me because I thought laser disc was phased out earlier than that). For those who want it as a bonus feature on a feature film release, then you can find on on the DVD and Blu-ray version of the film Each Dawn I Die (WB cartoon spoof is the 1949 short, “Each Dawn I Crow”), starring Gregory Raft and James Cagney. The DVD version came out in 2006 while the Blu-ray is a more recent release (2021). It’s also available as part of a 2008 collection of Warner Bros gangster movies called Warner Bros Pictures Gangster Collection, volume 2 (not very imaginative, but it does says what it is). “Detouring America” and Each Dawn I Die are both on the second volume, joining such other films as Bullets or Ballots, City for Conquest, “G” Men, San Quentin, and A Slight Case of Murder.

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Not as of this writing. Like I said before, this mostly was released on home media and seen on television.

‘Til next time: Stay Looney and Be Merrie!

Speaking of the Weather (An Old Buddy [Cartoon] of Mine)

Director: Frank Tashlin

Summary: A “midnight in the store” cartoon (the first of three that Tashlin did and his first color cartoon), featuring celebrity caricatures and spoofs of popular reading material of the day all set to the title track of the short. This one takes place at a drugstore after midnight, and the reading material shown are magazines of all types. Like all “midnight at the store” shorts, this one has a rather thin story to break up the monotony of the gags and music. This one has a yegg from The Gang Magazine trying to break into a safe shown on the cover of The Magazine of Wall Street and Business, only to have everyone from Boy Scouts from Boy’s Life magazine to Greta Garbo on the cover of Photoplay stopping him when the crook inevitably escapes from the prison cell on the cover of LIFE.

The Channel(s): Cartoon Network and Boomerang

Part(s) Edited: A light edit on this one. When the prisoner makes his escape and all the magazine characters go after him, all that was cut were two shots of the African natives running towards the camera, which, if you can believe it, is recycled footage from “Buddy of the Apes” (which definitely didn’t air on Cartoon Network due to the stereotypical depictions of African natives/non-white indigenous peoples) and “Buddy’s Theatre” (which also didn’t air on Cartoon Network for the same reason, though, now that I think of it, I don’t think Cartoon Network aired any Buddy cartoons because…they just weren’t that good. Not even Late Night Black and White showed them, to my knowledge, and they showed the few shorts that had Goopy Geer as a character).

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit: Not much, unless you count the second edit where you can clearly hear the angry natives over the shot of the thug bouncing on the spears thrown at him. Even then, I give that a pass, because audio cue mistakes happen a lot in editing and that mistake can easily be dismissed as the walla of off-screen magazine characters that somehow got spears from other magazine covers (possibly one about primitive weapons or touring African jungles).

Video Comparison:

Availability Uncut: “Speaking of the Weather” hit the home media release trifecta of the 1990s going into the early-to-mid 2000s: it was on the laser disc and VHS versions of the Golden Age of Looney Tunes series (volume 1, “1930s Musicals”) in 1991. Fourteen years later, it appeared on the third volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection (the volume where the concentric circles are black, Bugs is holding one of the singing girls from that short, and it comes with a warning about politically-incorrect content courtesy of Whoopi Goldberg) on the second disc, featuring Hollywood spoofs of the 1930s, ‘40s, and 50s. Three years after that, it appeared as a special feature on the DVD version of the movie, Gold Diggers of 1937, starring Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, Victor Moore, and Glenda Farrell, and that’s where it’s been ever since. As of this writing, it hasn’t been re-remastered for Blu-ray or put on streaming, which is a shame, because this feels like it could have been on HBO Max when that service first launched in 2020, only to be pulled because it had outdated racial and ethnic stereotypes in it.

‘Til next time…

 

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).

Buddy's Theatre (Banned From Re-Release)

Director: Ben Hardaway

Summary: In essence, this is a toned-down version of "Bosko's Picture Show." We have Buddy as the projectionist at a movie theater (Bosko, in the former cartoon, was the organist back when movie theaters actually had sing-along segments as part of the coming attractions and B-level entertainment [the cartoons, the live-action shorts, the second-run movies, etc] before the feature presentation), a lot of newsreel gags (also from "Bosko's Picture Show"), the hero's girlfriend starring in a movie, and the hero trying to save her by messing with the film (and pissing off anyone who paid top nickel to see it). There are no jokes about Hitler trying to kill Jimmy Durante because Durante had that long nose stereotypically associated with Jewish people, Buddy doesn't call the villain (who is an escaped gorilla rather than the mustache-twirling, Snidely Whiplash type associated with the romantic melodramas of the time) a "dirty fawk," and there's no running gag involving the original four Marx Brothers chasing after dogs and singing "Daisy" while riding a four-man tandem bike.

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

Part(s) Edited: According to the Looney Tunes Fandom wiki, there's supposed to be a scene featuring African natives running towards the audience (I'm assuming as part of the "Coming Attractions" string of gags), which was recycled from "Buddy of the Apes", which was on Nickelodeon's list of Warner Bros. cartoons they weren't allowed to show on Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon. It makes sense why Nickelodeon would cut that part.

How It Plays Edited: To be honest, the edit is seamlessly done. If there's something obviously missing, then I haven't picked up on it, because I currently can't find the uncut version. If anyone out there has it or knows where I can find it, then I will be forever grateful. To get the search started, I'm going to upload the edited version of this short (actual edited version. I didn't alter this in any way) on the blog so anyone out there has a good starting point in their search:

Availability Uncut: As of this writing (in 2024), there's no release of an uncut, uncensored, remastered, and restored version (and, if Buddy truly is one of the least-loved Warner Bros. characters due to being bland and boring and not because of outdated racial/ethnic stereotypes or, in the case of Pepe Le Pew, making fun of sexual harassment, why would there be demand for it, outside of the need for completion?), but I do have faith that an uncut version will resurface. My guess? It'll probably happen when this short enters the public domain.

EDIT: Thanks to Anthony's Animation Talk review for this cartoon, I found out where exactly the African native scene was supposed to be in the fabled uncut version (which isn't a fable, but adding "fabled" to it does give it a bit of mystery). After the joke about Mausoleum (Mussolini) drafting literal toddlers as soldiers for his fascist army (with one asking him in gibberish to either leave the army or go to the bathroom, I don't know), there's a newsreel story about Liverpill (Liverpool), England seeing economic recovery as shoppers are flocking to early dollar day sales in the city's stores, then we cut to the recycled scene from "Buddy of the Apes" (and later, a colorized version shown on Frank Tashlin's "Speaking of the Weather") of the angry natives running towards the camera. Like I said: Nickelodeon did a fine job of seamlessly cutting it, but since the scene was part of a string of gags that had no bearing in the plot, there wasn't much the audience was missing, especially since the joke does feel kind of dated to start with. 

Click here to see the version shown (in clips) on Anthony's Animation Talk.

Buddy's Circus (Ubangi The Drum Slowly)

 

Director: Jack King

Summary: Buddy owns a circus filled with funny animals, non-white natives who can do strange things with their bodies, and a white baby who wandered in on the acts.

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

Part(s) Edited: Every scene involving the Ubangi circus performers, including a scene where one of the aerial acrobats falls and catapults a baby off a seesaw and the scenes at the sideshow featuring Elastiko the Indian Rubber Man and Asbesto the Human Stove (the last one is not only an edit to get rid of outdated African/otherwise non-white native caricatures, but also an edit for dangerous behavior involving swallowing fire. This is going by my observations, since this was not mentioned on the old Censored Cartoons Page or the Looney Tunes wiki) was cut.

How It Plays Edited/Video Comparison: The first part with the Ubangi Brothers (though the one with oranges for breasts and a skirt is very much a woman. Not a particularly flattering depiction of an African native woman, but what do you expect from 1934?), Elastiko the Indian Rubber Man, and Asbesto the Human stove being cut is no big loss, since it's just a compilation of gags with no real bearing on the story. The second part with the baby getting catapulted...the only criticism I can give is that there's a minor continuity error that not even a diagonal wipe effect that looks like it was part of the cartoon can save:

Availability Uncut: Surprisingly, this is available on home media, uncut, uncensored, and remastered. Your choices are either the Looney Tunes Golden Collection (volume six) DVD set or the Blu-ray version of the Wheeler and Woosley film, Kentucky Kernels. It's probably not going to be on streaming or digital download any time soon, so get it while it's hot on disc.

How Do I Know It's Sunday? (Why Should You Care It's Edited)

 

Director: Friz Freleng

Summary: It’s a “products/label mascots come to life to sing the title song and perform in a closed store” cartoon, but, instead of taking place at night, it takes place on a Sunday during daylight hours, when most, if not all, stores would be closed so people can go to church and rest.

The Channel: Nickelodeon (Nick@Nite version of Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon, because where else would this air? I think I would have remembered it on the daytime version where it was nothing but the post-1964 Daffy Duck/Speedy Gonzales cartoons, the post-1964 Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons made without Chuck Jones’ involvement, the redrawn- and computer-colorized Porky Pig cartoons from the 1930s, the Pepe Le Pew shorts made after 1949’s “For Scent-imental Reasons”, and the semi-forgotten, “underrated gems” shorts -- both one-shot and with established characters --  that aired between 1949 and 1963).

Part(s) Edited: Just two scenes of outdated black/African-American stereotyping:

• The black chef on the Scream Wheat (Cream of Wheat) box singing along with the mammy caricature on the box of Aunt Eliza (Aunt Jemima, now known as Pearl Milling) during the title song. I don’t know if the shot of them in the background was cut too, but, for the purposes of the approximation, I’m going to leave it in because I feel that that’s what Nickelodeon did.

• The kid mascots using the ceiling fan as a merry-go-round -- not because it’s dangerous behavior that can easily be imitated by young, impressionable viewers, but because there are two black caricatures riding on the ceiling fan blades.

How It Plays Edited/Video Comparison: As I've mentioned before: cartoons like this don't lose much in terms of story or plot when it comes to being edited for either time or content (mostly content). With this one, however, I'm amazed there weren't more cuts to outdated racial and ethnic stereotypes. I'm guessing it would have led to a very choppy and incoherent cartoon if Nickelodeon went in that direction. If I wanted a musical cartoon that's severely edited to get rid of outdated racial and ethnic stereotypes, I can watch the Cartoon Network cut of "September in the Rain" (and I have. Thanks a lot, Acme Hour). Here's the approximation compare and contrast video:

Availability Uncut: If you can believe it, this actually has a home media release -- two of them, in fact. It was first released on the Looney Tunes Collector’s Edition VHS (volume 5’s “Musical Masterpieces”) in 2000. Eight years later, it was released on DVD as part of the sixth and final Looney Tunes Golden Collection set (it’s on disc three, which is dedicated to the Bosko, Buddy, and one-shot musical black and white cartoons).

Buddy of the Apes (A Closer Look-Out)

Director: Ben Hardaway

Summary: In this spoof of Tarzan (the movie version with Johnny Weissmuller as the title character), Buddy (who is living in the jungle) is targeted by African cannibals and the only ones who can stop them are his animal buddies.

The Channel: Sunset Production/Guild Films syndication

Part(s) Edited: I was going to omit this one, since this is one of those cartoons that rarely, if ever, airs on American TV due to outdated racial and ethnic caricatures and the fact that Buddy cartoons aren’t very popular, but, it turns out that this did air on television edited. Between 1955 and 1968, “Buddy of the Apes” aired without the scene of the "look-out" cannibal native alerting the cannibal chief about Buddy and the animals (I’m going to assume by how it’s worded on the Looney Tunes wiki that the rest of the scenes with the African cannibals wasn’t edited). This also was on Nickelodeon’s list of Warner Bros cartoons they could legally air at the time they were running the Nick@Nite version of Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon, but, due to Standards and Practices (read: the network censors), couldn’t air it because it would take too much time, money, and effort to edit all the racially insensitive scenes.

How It Plays Edited/Video Comparison: Turns out the version I have is the edited Guild Films/Sunset Productions version. I still did a compare/contrast approximation video, but with a twist. This is one of those “so obvious, it hurts” cuts that even first-time viewers like me can pick up on because of how quickly it goes from the “look-out” cannibal sliding down the tree to the chief ringing the triangle nose ring on the cannibal sitting next to him. There’s something obviously gone.

Availability Uncut: As of 2024, there’s no uncut version on official release (or even unofficial release, as it’s not a public domain cartoon that’s always featured in home media releases that have public domain cartoons) and most WB cartoon fans (barring the hardened completionists) aren’t clamoring for remastered, uncut, and uncensored Buddy cartoons (heck, some were surprised when “Buddy’s Beer Garden” made it to the Looney Tunes Golden Collection). The version I found on Archive.org is the edited Guild Films version, so that will have to do until someone pipes up and says an uncut version exists. It happened to “Buddy the Woodsman,” so anything’s possible.