theres a few tom and jerry cartoons that for one reason or another that haven’t been broadcast in a while also remember Ted turner who owned 99 percent of the studio cartoons made at one point was well known for cherry picking what he aired and out right editing parts and jokes he felt were offensive (one example is bugs vs the mounties in which the end was cut off by 30 seconds )
One that cartoon network has never aired and I don’t remember the name of is one of the early 60s eastern European cheapies where tom is sitting on a railroad track waiting for the train ……. jerry in an oddly british sounding voice is narrating one of toms failed love affairs in which a wealthy butch out spent and classed him and his life went down the tubes trying to keep up but it played out like an addiction story and the only thing that made it amusing was the visual gags
Another one that didn’t play for years until warners bought out ted was a rather sadistic chuck jones short where jerry and another unidentified mouse play these escalating practical jokes on a sleeping tom that almost end in tom convinced hes trying to kill himself and almost finishes the job…….
I’ve seen that particular cartoon many times. If you’ve seen T&J a number of times, I’m sure you had seen Mammy in them. They would only show her from the waist down, but she had the stereotypical Mammy voice (“Thomas, is you gon’ catch that mouse?”). For a while, they redubbed her voice with that of the late June Foray (the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Granny in the Tweety & Sylvester cartoons) but went back to the Mammy voice in the Nineties. The thing that bugged me about that particular cartoon was that Jerry is MUCH smaller than that woman, so how did it fool Tom? Oh, and lest you think I’m a candidate for Klan membership: I’m a 58- year-old black man. Not all blackface is created equally racist.
This character (does anyone ever actually address her as ‘Mammy’???) in fact appears in the very first episode, wherein we learn that Tom’s name is Jasper, and that she is a bad speller.
I always get upset with posts that point to those insensitive <insert nationality/country>. I’m sure there are things in American culture that offends those in other countries that don’t get posted here because this forum is highly Westerncentric, witnessed by the numerous posts about “Things that everyone the world knows” or “Everyone in the world does” posts. Considering that Europe and North America account for less than 20% of the world population, I find those kinds of posts and outrage misguided at best. Demographics of the world - Wikipedia
That said, worldwide brand Prada, recently was called to task for their “Pradamalia” fantasy figures which featured a distinctly stereotypical blackface “monkey” in a Soho, NY store and highly likely their other stores around the world. I’d love to hear the marketing of this, "Doesn’t it look, a bit…ummm…stereotypical?, “No…it’s a fantasy figure that will go over big with our cilentele!” SIGH
“Prada Group abhors racist imagery. The Pradamalia are fantasy charms composed of elements of the Prada oeuvre. They are imaginary creatures not intended to have any reference to the real world and certainly not blackface." Double SIGH
Just curious, did you talk to your son about why you thought the cartoon was inappropriate?
I posted in another thread that I used to read a lot of b/w comic magazines (Vampirella, Creepy, Eerie, etc) that my Mom told me had too much “man/lady stuff”. I immediately trashed them all, not out of fear, but cause she respected me enough to tell me her concern.
As I think back upon it, it was apparently okay that there were lots of severed heads and other body parts!
You’re describing Blue Cat Blues which wasn’t a Eastern European cheapie or made in the 60’s. It was produced by Hanna Barbera and released in 1956. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piJI3pvwBuM
Don’t mess with my cartoon memories, it’s one of the few good things I have left!
Bczar, what’s yourtake on Mammy Two-Shoes?
I always thought it was a clever idea to have the human character shown only from the knees down, or the occasional scolding finger descending god-like from the top of the frame. And the voice and personality given to the character by the original voice actor works well to create an amusing no-nonsense authority figure who can be both coddling and threatening to Tom.
It’s a sharp contrast to the goofy angry man who is Tom’s owner in later episodes, and is shown in full body, which I thought was a poor decision.
It wasn’t until much later in life that I realized Mammy Two-Shoes was a racial stereotype.
In the case of the episode I saw, where Jerry blacks up to fool Tom, I wondered at first whether he was going to try and dress up like Mammy Two-Shoes. That at least would have made some sense. But his disguise looks nothing like the little we see of Tom’s owner, so the whole charade is not only offensive, it’s completely bonkers!
A little, but I didn’t really need to.
Although he doesn’t know about the history of blakface, he understands that dressing up to mock another culture or ethnicity isn’t right.
I remember him being named Jasper in an early episode, but didn’t remember the spelling mistake.
So I guess that’s another stereotype.
Although my own spelling has always been atrocious, so maybe that’s why I didn’t notice.
That always makes me wonder if Day of the Dead facepaint is considered blackface since in a lot I see if them the black eye and mouth holes take up more space then the white skull portion.
I’ve never heard it considered blackface. I have heard Day of the Dead costumes are considered un-PC for Halloween. I’m not sure if that’s because Day of the Dead isn’t really “Mexican Halloween” or it’s just that the overly PC snowflake crowd has declared any costume that references anything from another nationality as “cultural appropriation”.
