Ah, yes, “THINK OF THE CHIIILDREEENNN…” because, of course, post-1990 children are too stupid to realize that you should not fire a cannon when someone’s head is stuck into the muzzle? I’d love to see the studies that show that from 1950 to 1970 there was an epidemic of American middle-schoolers blasting each other in the face with shotguns while yelling “Duck Season!!!”, or attempting to catapult themselves across ravines.
Of coure, part of the problem is that somehow we expect all animation to be suitable for age 5. Well, it isn’t. Thing is, too many lazy-ass parents WANT to plunk their toddler in front of the teevee and go just leave him/her soaking in whatever comes out of the tube for hours.
jrd Hamish, I would have thrown my hands up and given up on making that one suitable for American TV
You mean to tell me that I’m the ONLY 'Toon out of 801 that’s circumsized??? Zut Alors ! I feel all alone !! :eek:[/smarmy hijack]
I’ve noticed this too. It’s been a problem for longer than your may realize. Between editing to fit tighter time constraints, and editing to keep the P.C. Police at bay, some cartoons are hardly recognizable at all. It stinks.
I always wonder what they think suitable is. They start with a spurious assumption that television leads to violence, and they run with it.
In Sailor Moon, they removed two gay relationships, a lot of nudity, some bathroom humour, and any and all references to Serena as the second coming of the Christian messiah. It doesn’t sound like they were just afraid of youth violence, here.
The Simpsons doesn’t really count, as it is a sitcom that’s not on a kids network, and the cuts you mention are the basic syndication cut-and-compress kind.
Although cuts in old theatrical cartoons are nothing new. (I have personally never seen Ballot Box Bunny with its Russian Roulette ending intact.) The times do change. The good people at AOL Time Warner should get up off their lazy arses and start restoring these classic films! They had tried doing it at one time (Jerry Beck once had a picture of a restored version of Falling Hare on his website-it never looked better!), but didn’t really keep at it for some reason. Sad.
Yes, ‘n’ let’s talk about the gay thing for a moment, shall we? How exactly does it work that the exporters can show a boy crushed half to death, one giant robot eating another giant robot’s cyborganic intestines, but one boy telling another “I’m saying I love you” is apparently more than the American stomach can handle and must be changed? ::irritation::
Can anyone else tell I was glad when they put out a decent subtitle translation on the Evangelion DVDs?
The most offensive cut in any cartoon, for me, HAS to be the one with the singing frog, where the guy that finds the frog can’t get anyone in the theater, so he paints “Free Admission!” on a sign, and still no one comes in, so he paints “Free Beer!” on another sign, and is trampled immediately.
The way they show it now, he paints “Free Admission!” and gets trampled immediately. GRRRR!!! Is nothing sacred??
One cut that got me was the mangling of the Batman Beyond film. They cut it up real good…dammit I was looking forward to it. It had enough violence and disturbing stuff implied, why cut out the meat?:rolleyes:
Interesting. I have never seen One Froggy Evening with the “Free Beer!” sign removed. I have heard it was at one time, but I’ve never personally.
Warner Bros. recently re-released Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker on DVD in an uncut, PG-13 rated version. However, some DVDManiacs have noted that the film has been framed to fit in a psuedo-letterbox, thus removing portions of the picture.
Either “Rabbit Seasoning” was shown in its entirety or it had been so long since I had seen it that I didn’t notice anything missong.
Really? When did this happen? I’ve seen Speedy twice on CN within the past month. In one Speedy recurited by villagers to get the local cheese supply which is being guarded by Sylvester and cousin Slowpoke visited in the other.
I’ve also seen “One Froggy Evening” on CN recently, Free Beer! intact.
Thank God CN shows the Free Beer sign!! ::Dooku’s faith in humanity restored::
I saw it on a local channel, not the CN, and actually tried to find the number of the station so I could call and complain. I left a message. Nobody got back to me.
Jeff, dunno, there’s a Doper out there who has/had a link in his sig that talked about it. I think that the “blacklisting” of SG cartoons may not be total, but well, nigh close to it.
The guy who runs the local animé rental place, my dealer in all things otaku, has informed me that Central Park Media is too nervous to release the second DVD of Angel Sanctuary because it’s under pressure from the religious right.
What could they possibly object to? It’s just the story of a guy who’s in love with his sister who discovers he’s the reincarnation of an angel who’s destined to overthrow an evil God and his narcissistic angels with the help of a couple of cross-dressing demons. Pretty normal by animé standards.
I’m sick to death of the religious right trying to play big brother. Any attempt to regulate what adults see and read and hear is infantalizing. And I can think of far worse things for children to see – like Sunday morning TV evangelism and the 700 Club.
I guess now if I need a fix of lurid stories about incest, plague-bearing angels, wrath of God, divine cruelty, and sadomasochism, I’m going to have read the Bible again.
I actually have think Cartoon Network has been very good about decreasing the amount of censorship from what was originally taken out when they were broadcast in the early 90s. I’ve seen some of the wartime cartoons (not the more racist ones, but some involving Hitler, etc), and seriously don’t see a problem with them. If they absotutely (inanely, it’s still more appropriate than 99% of what is shown to children) must censor them, they should at least give people SOME venunue to watch them in an uncut form.
