I’m currently watching Hellboy: Blood and Iron on cartoon network. While it seems to take pains to mimic Mignola’s style of drawing, it certainly takes liberties with both character design and occasionally plot. I’ve noticed that at many times during the feature, female characters have appeared nude or topless. Normally in an american Animation release this would be a complete no-no. In this instance they’ve created a really odd solution. They simply have removed the nipples. This seems not only seriously strange, but why bother? Considering that they could just have simply edited the shot, or convienently place shadows, etc, Why bother showing a fully nude female at all? Occasionally Mignola will do this in his comic, but it seems an odd solution. What’s up with this? Are they simply trying to push the boundries?
Cartoon nudity is far more acceptable than live-action nudity in the US, but there are limits. Female nipples and male genitialia are still taboo. Look at Family Guy, Peter is often seen nude, but his fat always leans down to cover his genitals.
What was that comedy central show, Bob and Margret? Anyway, it had nudity all the time, male and female as I recall…
Good point Alpha, but there seems to be a difference between the blatant shock-value gross out of family guy and the sort of casual pseudo-nudity seen in the Hellboy feature. I’m wondering if this is a simple use to stick true to the comics, or a subtle pushing of the envelope. Call me old fashioned, but a bare jiggly cartoon boob seems far MORE disturbing to me without the nipple then with. After all if it’s anatomically correct, my viewing usually results as:
“Oh look a boob.” 
With this oddity it spawned a lot of initial confusion.
“Is that a boob? :dubious: hmmm huh, i guess it IS a boob! But wait…now she’s fully in the light and she doesn’t have nipples…Weird!” 
It seemed to draw my attention far more than if it had simply been complete. I suppose it’s a fair compromise in terms of staying true to the comics but it was still really weird.
Wasn’t that made in Canada?
Yes, it was. It was based on an Oscar-winning short produced through the National Film Board of Canada, which depicts a man’s penis in numerous scenes (very badly drawn, I might add).
The original Fantasia showed perky teenage centaur boobs sans nipples but, IIRC, there is a momentary glimpse of witch tit during “Night on Bald Mountain” showing nipple and, by the looks of it, it was a chilly evening.
Canada/UK co-production. Channel 4, Nelvana, and CanwestGlobal were the primary producers (the original Bob’s Birthday short was Channel 4, and the NFB).
Although I don’t remember any nudity in it other than Bob’s talliwacker in Bob’s Birthday…
More than once, but those were harpies. Being non-human I guess it’s okay.
I know, I know: the centaurettes are non-human as well, but the point (heh) of interest is human enough to be rousing. IIRC they had to argue with the Hays office to show what they did.
Fascinating. Apparently, simply being a non human character, not matter how, um, titillating, is enough to make it past the censors eh? Well if that’s the case then it certainly explains the film I saw. We had bare breasted goddesses, vampires, witches and harpies, but not a human breast to be seen. Now that I think on it, whenever the vampire was in her “beautiful woman” guise the usual editing seemed to apply. What an odd double standard.
Heh. A couple of more exceptions to test the rule—again, from Comedy Central.
•Drawn Together, which already has an uncensored version that goes to DVD, has managed to sneak nudity on-air a few times. (Once, for sure, it was during a special “no censoring” timeslot, but the other, IIRC, was during regular, albeit very late-night, air time.)
•And, naturally, South Park. (A number of scattered incidents, often in non or barely sexual contexts.)
Heck, the Simpsons even showed Michelangelo’s David onscreen—and I’m pretty sure I saw a calendar with Marge as Venus de Milo…in all her British-TV-where-they-can-show-nudity-but-edit-out-cartoon-turtles-clubbing-robots-to-death style glory…on sale once—and Futurama, technically, showed Leela topless a couple of times.
Speaking of the Simpsons, there was a Tracy Ullman short where the family goes to an art museum and Homer and Bart ogle a painting of a naked woman, much to Marge’s dismay.
Anyone else remember Heavy Metal? If I remember correctly, there was quite a bit of sex and nudity in that animated feature…
It’s only been relatively recently that animated male nipples have apperared as well. Take a look at He-Man cartoons from the 80s. Not a nipple in sight. Same for comic books. You’d have characters whose costume involved being naked from the waist up, like Ka-Zar, and no nipples.
Wasn’t the nerd-turned-action hero naked all the time?
Does British TV still ban ninja violence? I know they’re against hanging (see: the “Out West” episode of Ren & Stimpy), but I read on Mirage Studio’s website that the current Ninja Turtles series airs in England with its original name (the original series was renamed “Hero Turtles” and any use of Michaelangelo using his nuchukus was removed because it was considered too violent for a kids’ show).
No, he put on a loin cloth pretty early, stating he couldn’t go around with ‘[his] dork hanging out’.
There’s plenty of sex and nudity in the Den segment, though. And So Beautiful and So Dangerous, and Taarna. I can’t remember if there was any in Harry Canyon (I don’t think so), and Captain Sternn and B-52 were both ‘clean’.
Although technically American, Heavy Metal the movie was based on Heavy Metal the Magazine, which was in turn based on Metal Hurlant the magazine, a cheese-eating surrender monkey production. Hence, technically, Heavy Metal is an import. From France.
That was the cab driver, right? The fare he picked up popped her top at some point (“Harry, can I sleep in here with you tonight?”)
Oh, am I thinking of the original comic then? :smack: