Cartoons and censorship

[scroogemcd77]

Hey wanted to get people's opinion on this. Warner announced releasing Tom and Jerry Golden collection volume 2 on bluray and dvd in June but have said they are excluding 2 shorts "Mouse Cleaning" and Casanova Cat" due to stereotypes but yet in volume one there are quite a few cartoons with the same stereotypes in them but with the disclaminer that these are a product of their times it wasnt ok then its not ok now but to not release them would be saying these never exisited. So I ask why is some ok to release and some are not ?

[NikeBoyRM]

There are many Disney's classic cartoons with Donald Duck in the Nazi army...I think they are also in home video...

[Divia]

I hate it when they censor old toons. Just leave it because its a part of our past. It's a good learning tool. And people are too bloody sensitive these days!

[Dave-Man]

I think it is important for us to remember that those time did exist, even if the cultural references offend our "politically correct" sensibilities. We need to remember where we've come from and why some of those things are not OK. So I think it is not a good idea to censor old cartoons in this way.

[wyldman11]

It's likely people still complained despite the disclaimer. we shouldn't live in the past in regards to this stuff, but also ignoring it is just as bad if not worse.

[H.A.L.9000]

i hate it when they censor old toons. Just leave it because its a part of our past. It's a good learning tool. And people are too bloody sensitive these days!

this^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[King Gilskull]

I think they need to put the original cartoons in at least an optional set for adult collectors and animation historians. Hard though if they think there's no profit in such a niche audiance.

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There are many Disney's classic cartoons with Donald Duck in the Nazi army...I think they are also in home video...

I have those on DVD. The catch is they tack on warnings by celebrities that you cannot skip over.

[scroogemcd77]

With Disney they must think kids today dont have the same attention spans we did cause well Disney channel used to have something for everyone but now its mostly for kids and tweens but thats a whole other topic but with the classic cartoons those treasure tins are complete but when they show them on Disney Channel they call them Have a Laugh and edit them down heavily and dub them. Thankfully Disney released the classic cartoons in tact in those treasure series but still holding back on Song of the South in America anyway already been released in other countries long time ago.

[King Gilskull]

With Disney they must think kids today dont have the same attention spans we did cause well Disney channel used to have something for everyone but now its mostly for kids and tweens but thats a whole other topic but with the classic cartoons those treasure tins are complete but when they show them on Disney Channel they call them Have a Laugh and edit them down heavily and dub them. Thankfully Disney released the classic cartoons in tact in those treasure series but still holding back on Song of the South in America anyway already been released in other countries long time ago.

I remember seeing Song of the South during one of it's theatrical re-releases in the late 80's. I would love to own a legit copy.

[Midwinter]

This is a really tough subject. I went to school for animation and briefly worked in the industry so I am one of those people that seek out hard to find animation and enjoy the long rich history. There are definitely many offensive cartoons that have been censored or totally unseen for many years. As mentioned above Disney is one of the biggest culprits of this practice. Even movies that were made in the past 20-30 years have been censored when you think of Roger Rabbit on DVD.

Yet the other side of me totally agrees in the fact that if I had a son or daughter that would feel sad if they saw these cartoons or saw them at a friend's house then I would want them removed forever.

I've learned that there is always a way to get these cartoons through some source (youtube, burned dvds, downloads, laserdisc, etc...) so it doesn't really worry me much other than they will never go through a nice restoration. I would rather make that small sacrifice than know the release actually brought shame or offended somebody. It just isn't worth it to me.

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I remember seeing Song of the South during one of it's theatrical re-releases in the late 80's. I would love to own a legit copy.

You can get a legitimate release on Japanese Disney Laserdisc. The quality is really rough and it has subtitles during the songs, but it is definitely worth owning.

[scott metzger]

I remember seeing Song of the South during one of it's theatrical re-releases in the late 80's. I would love to own a legit copy.

But that's a highly offensive movie. The only character with any brains or sense is Uncle Remus, and all of the white people are portrayed as utter and complete morons. The protrayal of caucasions in that movie is very bad...

Wait, you mean that isn't why it's not being released?

On a serious note, I agree that this is part of our history, both pop culture and beyond. Pretending we never portrayed the Japanese as buck toothed demons or blacks as dimwitted servants or happy, singing slaves is ignoring our past and the things we did wrong. Those prejudices did exist, and the best way to ensure that they could return is to ignore it altogether. People can decide for themselves if they want to buy a certain cartoon or movie, and do not need to have their delicate sensibilities protected.

[scroogemcd77]

Well in Tom and Jerry's case Amazon and other websites are littered with dozens of negative reviews in hopes since the Golden collection volume 2 isnt due out on dvd and bluray til June 11 2013 Warner will take notice fear loss of revenue and include the missing shorts but Warner issued a statement saying they review what they release and feel the material is inappropriate for the intended audience which I find weird since these type of collections are intended for the adult collector.

[NikeBoyRM]

[Rhanen]

It is a delicate issue if those cartoons are today being aimed for kids audience, but Tom & Jerry were practically the entertainment prior the main event movie at cinemas for adult audiences. Then they were part of programming in the 60's til the 80's TV's for children. I grow up watching T&J and if it is for violence exposed, I think that Ben 10 is not lighter than those.

Donald Duck as a Nazi was more political satire, since all scene is a nightmare and he then wakes up holding and embracing an American flag (or statue, I don't recall it exactly). Still, I don't know how cannot that be used in an educational manner for younger children if well explained.

I'm more concerned in recent censorship on never released cartoons like "The Simpsons" or the infamous "Dexter's Lab: Dexter Rude Removal", even when those are intended for adult audiences; but then I recall "Cow & Chicken" episode with Chicken smoking or all episodes with a bare naked rear Devil and those were kids cartoons

[diosoth]

The Donald Duck cartoon was intended to show that life in Nazi Germany was bad- everyone works and slaves for "the fuhrer" and gets no reward because they're treated like sheep for the glory of the man in charge. Then Donald wakes up from his dream, back home in Freedomland.

Of course, most of the WW2 cartoons were aimed at Japan, not Germany. Japan did directly attack the US, and there was much apathy towards Germany from the US prior to that. We made fun of Hitler, not Germany as a whole.

Lots of those cartoons were also made in the 20s-40s, before civil rights. It was... "accepted" to have those beliefs back then.

On the other hand, cartoons back then were typically of a higher quality than stuff from the 70s and 80s. The art was often smoother and they had more frames of animation per second. Cartoonists back then were craftsmen. Then the 70s came along and we started getting cheaper budget stuff- Hanna-Barbera did get a bit lazier and Jay Ward farmed Bullwinkle out to a Mexican studio solely for cost reasons. 80s cartoons- and I'm aware this is an 80s nostalgia board- were cheap toy commercials at maybe 3-4 frames a second that had to be cranked out like an assembly line. Filmation was on a budget, and while Sunbow was merely a production house that hired overseas animators, their budget was quite limited and a few of their studio choices were bad. Dic also farmed out. Some 80s animation was by Toei, others were... not. You might get a stellar episode, then you get "Carnage In C-Minor" where I'm almost certain the animators were drunk.

However, we don't see much of the older stuff now compared to 70s and onward. Licensing rights expired and transferred hands, people are sensitive of releasing cartoons that are a bit racist, some old cartoons don't exist because the master film reels are lost or destroyed. Some stuff gets buried because of lack of interest- because most of the people who may be nostalgic are elderly or dead. I would not be surprised if maybe 20% of old cartoons are simply lost forever because their reels weren't stored properly. Pity, because stuff that old should be preserved.

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Though it might pay to dig through bargain bin racks or go to cheapo dollar stores and browse their DVDs. Lots of older stuff actually lapsed on copyright so anyone can release DVDs of it, so you can find old cartoons DVDs in odd places. Stuff you may not even know existed might be on DVD.

[Dragon78]

What simpsons episode(s) did they censer or never release?

[ShowerPowerFrosta]

Not quite on the same level as much of the conversation here, but I was watching an episode of Jem and the Holograms the other day, and Riot's dad wouldn't let him play the piano. Music is for "women and sissies" he said.

[Optimus Prime]

Thankfully you can find lots of these so-called 'banned' gems on Youtube. As mentioned before, it's sad that many companies seem to try and block out the fact of what they did during the associated times. But here's Disney's "Education for Death"

[diosoth]

Search on Amazon for "banned cartoons" and you'll find a few dedicated DVDs, though they're mostly out of print so prices can be a bit high. But seeing as most of those cartoons are in public domain you can also try Youtube.

[Divia]

That nazi toon was very interesting to see. Very scary if you were a kid with all the dark colors and harsh images.

[diosoth]

A Youtube search for "banned cartoon" also gets plenty of results... bear in mind, some of those cartoons might not be totally safe to embed due to forum rules on such content. They can be racist in tone. Back in the 30s, Betty Boop was putting a lot of modern fanservice anime to shame.

I saw a pilot on Youtube a couple months back for a series about a teen girl secret agent, I think it was either CN or Nick that was going to do this show, but it had a plane crashing into a building. 9/11 happened and the show got canned before it could air.

the Dexter's Lab one I've heard of, and if it really exists we'll never see it. Word is they keep it under strict lock and key, it's meant to only be shown to celebrities and such as an exclusive thing. I doubt it'll ever leak, unless some magical event happened and it has leaked somehow.

[Dragon78]

I have seen the banned Dexter's lab and too be honest it wasn't all that great.

Do you remember the name of that teen girl secrect agent series.

[Rhanen]

What simpsons episode(s) did they censer or never release?

I have friend, fellow co-worker from Texas living here, and he mentioned that many of The Simpsons episodes aired in Latin America don't have any censorship. He told me that he find out some addtional scenes in many episodes like the one in which Ken Brockman curses or when Bart thinks he is going to marry a pregnant girl.
Here for example, it is banned the episode when Krusty is at Mr. Burns mansion and whenever is asked about how come he's at a live program at that very moment, he exposes that it is an old rerun; then it shows that it's a 1982 episode and he mentions that Argentina has invaded Malvinas islands (Falklands)

I have seen the banned Dexter's lab and too be honest it wasn't all that great.

Do you remember the name of that teen girl secrect agent series.

I've seen Dexter's Rude Removal also (Google is your friend) with zillion of beeps, and it is like many other episodes. I found more funny the non-rude Dexters & Dee-Dee versions dialogues but it could be quite shocking for a child seeing a cartoon cursing.

I'd also like to check that secret agent cartoon banned

Also, are anime series like DragonBall Z or Ranma 1/2 aired at daytime in US?
Those among others are quite questionable to be exposed for children audiences

[wyldman11]

Also, are anime series like DragonBall Z or Ranma 1/2 aired at daytime in US?
Those among others are quite questionable to be exposed for children audiences

DragonBall Z was edited during earlier hours and showed more but not everything later at night. I can't remember if there was any censorship when they showed Neon Genesis during that time (also late at night) or not. For some reason I recall their being some. I know some of the DBZ that was still left out was more or less inconsequintial to the overall story. Like Mr. Satan's name, called Hercule in the American translation.

[kylun flac]

not to release something in its entirety is like a cover up. at least show an unedited version or feature extras that show anything that would be cut. history should not be covered up like it never happened.