# Nudity in American Animation **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 18, 2007, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nudity-in-american-animation/396386 "2007-03-18T00:49:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nudity-in-american-animation/396386/41 "2007-03-20T09:04:11Z")
[QUOTE=Acid Lamp] Hey now i’m no prude! I’m all for more unedited animation and freedom of expression. I mas merely confused at the nipple-less solution. Frankly, _heavy Metal_ WAS about being both artsy and shocking. It was a different and far cry from the children’s fare Americans considered animation to be at the time. I doubt very much that the nudity in the shorts that composed the film were integral to the plot at all. [/QUOTE] Hell, half the stories weren’t integral to the plot! Grimaldi, Harry Canyon, Den and the finale all revolved around the Loc-Nar, but in the rest it was just a random plot device shoehorned in to justify whatever change took place in the story. I laughed myself silly over the interlude scenes in particular: here’s the Loc-Nar trying to sound menacing, when in the previous scene its only power was the ability to make a robot built by cokehead aliens pop a boner and try to bang the secretary. Hell of a fun movie, though. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nudity-in-american-animation/396386/42 "2007-03-20T09:10:26Z")
[QUOTE=kaylasdad99] Possibly, I suppose. I’ll decide whether I think it likely once I’ve seen _Heavy Metal_ play on Cartoon Network. 'Course, unless somebody who watched _Lupin_ in Japan during the '70s wants to weigh in. [/QUOTE] The video store near my place has a large selection of anime, including the Lupin series. I could see if they have anything resembling the episode you describe. In the pilot of the _Ranma 1/2 series_, I recall bath scenes with nipples. I don’t think there were any after the first episode, though. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nudity-in-american-animation/396386/43 "2007-03-20T12:13:46Z")
> [@](#): > > Didn’t they also include a frame of Betty Boop dropping her top, which was edited out before the movie hit the home video market? I neve heard of Roger Rabbit having a frame with a topless Betty Boop, but there _is_ a single frame where you can see Betty Boop’s boob from the side, unholstered, in one of the original Fleischman films. It’s a compilation film from the mid 1930s, and Leslie Cabarga reproduces the relevant frame in the second edition of his **The Fleischer Story**. Incidentally, there apparently is a brief, almost subliminal view of a nude woman in one of the city windows during Wilbur’s flight at the beginning of the Disney film **The Rescuers Down Under**. ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nudity-in-american-animation/396386/44 "2007-03-20T17:15:46Z")
[QUOTE=kaylasdad99] Possibly, I suppose. I’ll decide whether I think it likely once I’ve seen _Heavy Metal_ play on Cartoon Network. 'Course, unless somebody who watched _Lupin_ in Japan during the '70s wants to weigh in. [/QUOTE] I don’t lnow about the Lupin TV show, but I noticed they edited out the nipples when they showed Tenchi Muyo on Cartoon Network. (In one of the early episodes they all go to a bath house, casual nudity ensues, followed by fanfics) Several of the Lupin movies also show Fujiko partly naked. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nudity-in-american-animation/396386/45 "2007-03-20T17:42:28Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] …Incidentally, there apparently is a brief, almost subliminal view of a nude woman in one of the city windows during Wilbur’s flight at the beginning of the Disney film **The Rescuers Down Under**. [/QUOTE] No _Down Under_, just plain _[The Rescuers](http://snopes.com/disney/films/rescuers.htm#zoom)_, and it’s a photograph. ---
**Author:** ![nashiitashii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7c8e57/32.png) [@nashiitashii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nashiitashii)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2007, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nudity-in-american-animation/396386/46 "2007-03-20T23:47:36Z")
[QUOTE=EJsGirl] Anyone else remember _Heavy Metal_? If I remember correctly, there was quite a bit of sex and nudity in that animated feature… [/QUOTE] I don’t recall it as an animated feature, but I can’t imagine it could be very good, considering the concept of the magazine. It sounds like it would be very disjointed. By the way, I got a chance to work with some really old comic books, and one of them was an original first issue of Heavy Metal. I had struck special collections display gold with that and other impressively busty cover pages. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2007, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nudity-in-american-animation/396386/47 "2007-03-21T01:49:38Z")
[QUOTE=nashiitashii] I don’t recall it as an animated feature, but I can’t imagine it could be very good, considering the concept of the magazine. It sounds like it would be very disjointed. By the way, I got a chance to work with some really old comic books, and one of them was an original first issue of Heavy Metal. I had struck special collections display gold with that and other impressively busty cover pages. [/QUOTE] “Disjointed” is putting it charitably. It’s more of an anthology of shorts with only the barest effort to connect them together. Still, the individual ‘episodes’ were quite good. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2007, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nudity-in-american-animation/396386/48 "2007-03-21T02:44:18Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] I neve heard of Roger Rabbit having a frame with a topless Betty Boop, but there _is_ a single frame where you can see Betty Boop’s boob from the side, unholstered, in one of the original Fleischman films. It’s a compilation film from the mid 1930s, and Leslie Cabarga reproduces the relevant frame in the second edition of his **The Fleischer Story**. [/QUOTE] Ah, yes. I’d forgotten that one. I can’t remember the name of the cartoon in question but it was a combination live action/animation one where (Dave?) Fleischer produces various backgrounds and Betty sings and dances in them. One is a Hawaiian luau scene. She ducks behind an ink bottle to change, but leans over topless to pull on her grass skirt. There’s a strategic lei around her neck when she does her rotoscoped hula. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2007, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nudity-in-american-animation/396386/49 "2007-03-21T14:04:13Z")
[QUOTE=Sublight] In the pilot of the _Ranma 1/2 series_, I recall bath scenes with nipples. I don’t think there were any after the first episode, though. [/QUOTE] The version of _Outlaw Star_ that Cartoon Network ran actually had bikinis/bathing suits added to every scene that would have shown breasts. They actually skipped an episode–I think the title is something like “Hot Springs Planet Tenmei”–because they couldn’t afford/didn’t have time to go through and paint bikinis in nearly every frame. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nudity-in-american-animation/396386.md?page=2)