So studios will cut things even you don’t find offensive. Fascinating.
And I’m sure you’re a hit down at the mosque.
Um, Monkey, I think you rather missed the point of my (admittedly too-cute-by-half) prior post. All of the entities we are discussing are wholly owned by Time Warner. Through those entities, Time Warner owns every blessed one of the cartoons at issue. Parse the ownership. Yes, CN may look like it’s licensing from, say Warner Brothers, or from Hanna Barbera, etc - but those are its Time Warner siblings. The ultimate contracting party on both sides is… Time Warner.
Time Warner has apparently determined that with rare exceptions, only its one subsidiary, CN, and CN’s subsidiary, Boomerang, will be able to broadcast its vast cartoon library. TW’s behavior indicates that in order to defend CN, it’s perfectly willing to make sure that the offensive cartoons do not see the light of day in any format. I understand that the Mouse been similarly aggressive about its own dubious heritage. According to WSJ coverage from about a year ago - during June Bugs - there are (or were) people within Time Warner who would like to see the 12 released in some super-sealed format. But everybody’s very nervous about it. And that’s unfortunate, because I agree that recutting or surpressing shorts is fundamentally dishonest - it allows corporate flacks to pretend that their paymasters never were racist, in a very Minitrue fashion.
Of course, none of that addresses what should play on a Saturday morning. Part of the probably is that large corporations tend to like to deal with large groups of self-appointed whiners, who frequently don’t represent their own communities terribly well. (Paging Mr. Jackson, Mr. Jesse Jackson, it’s your daughter on Line One…) But the most significant excess, banning Speedy Gonzalez, seems to be over. He has been restored to his, ahem, rightful spot - I saw it with my own two eyes, and officially I welcome it even if I find the character tiresome. And if they just allowed the full versions to be available somewhere, somehow, I wouldn’t care what sort of miserable hack job they’dve done for the kiddies to suit some grown-up’s histrionic imagination.
I think people are going a little overboard here. The original edits are not being destroyed. No records of them are being destroyed. They are still available, even, in unedited format. New cartoons are being made. The copyright holders feel like displaying new edits of old material: if you really need to, think of them as new works made of remixed archival content.
Not, perhaps, my preference, but again, I think any strong assertion against them doing so is horridly overblown, and has absolutely no moral ground to stand on. No one but the owners of the material has any right to decide in what form they will be release, manipulated in any which way they please. George Lucas’ re-edits of his first triliogy add nothing but offensively self-indulgent nosense and clumsy CGI cutesy pratfalls, but he can do what he likes with his property, and tough titties if I don’t like it.
If you are so desperate for your children to see a blackface act, why not put on some makeup yourself and give them a good show? Be a good parent: tape back your eyelids and do a Charlie Chan impression for them! I can’t really see what the point of that is, outside of a historical lesson, but then again I can’t see how refusing to do that would be consistent with worrying about children not getting enough nips references during their cartoon hours, on one particular channel out of an entire world of things they can also go look at instead if need be.
While this is of course true, my main point was that AOL Time Warner is a business, and if you throw enough money at 'em, you could buy the rights. Everybody has their price. Larry Mudd seemed to think that exclusive deals are inviolate. Just because Warner wants to vertically integrate doesn’t mean that someone like Rupert Murdoch couldn’t come along and financially convince them to license the toons to Fox Kids. That’s why I threw in the bake sale comment. Exclusive rights doesn’t really mean that no one else can ever air them - It just means that it is going to be really expensive to convince the owners to let you do that.
I fear we are starting to parse a minor point here, so I’ll move on.
On this we are in complete agreement.
I want to clarify my position here, because I think I traveled too far afield with a side discussion.
Complaining that the Cartoon Network has altered one of your favorite shows is fine, and no different than complaining about any other networks programming decisions. We get threads in Café Society all the time complaining about how UPN has ruined Star Trek and how Fox should have never canceled Family Guy.
Where this becomes ridiculous is when people start complaining about “revisionist history” and throw accusations that the Cartoon Network is somehow “lying”. Get a grip, people. You are not entitled to demand what artists (in this case - Warner Bros Animation Studios) do with their own work. Decrying that the changes are based on politics is silly and selfish. You can lament the changes based on artistic grounds, but you are not entitled to jack shit from them. They can do whatever the hell they want with their own works.
Lastly, where is the perspective? Looney Tunes ain’t the Declaration of independence. From the way some of y’all were acting, you would think that instead of saying “what’s up, doc?”, Bugs now says:
Oceania has always been at war with Elmer Fudd
Since I was born in 1970, I can tell you exactly where I was. I was watching cartoons that were far more heavily edited than anything shown on Cartoon Network. When my family got a VCR in the early 80s, I took it upon myself to tape network broadcasts of WB cartoons and compare them to uncut versions availabe on video. I timed them as well, and found the boadcast versions were shorter by almost a minute. Some of them were so heavily edited that they were almost impossible to follow (e.g. Duck, Rabbit, Duck cut out all the gunshots, showing only Daffy’s reactions). I ALWAYS thought that Tom’s owner was the matronly white lady and was never aware that she was originally black. I certainly never saw Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips or Coal Black and De Sebbin Dwarves on Saturday Morning.
I’m no big fan of editing cartoons, but editing stuff for television has been a part of television almost as long as there’s been television. You think the examples you cite are bad, you should see what’s done to cartoons brought over from Japan (not counting the ones CN runs late at night), although that’s improved from my childhood days as well. Practically every movie rated PG or higher that is aired on a non-premium cable station is edited for broadcast as well.
You don’t have to like it, but to describe it as a recent example of how PC has gotten out of hand is a bit inaccurate. Blaming the whole mess on PC liberalism is a bit much too, since two of the biggest players in trying to dictate what kids should and shouldn’t watch were the Rev. Donald Wildmon’s American Family Association and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. (I also remember Action for Children’s Television and the National Coalition on Television Violence as being pretty active, but don’t know if they had political leanings.)
As for being upset that there are certain cartoons that CN will not broadcast: tough. They have no obligation to air every or any cartoon in their extensive holdings and the fact that they don’t broadcast a short doesn’t make it censorship. If you really want to watch the wartime shorts with overt racist content, or think it important for your children to watch them, you can track them down on video/LD/DVD.
As I (possibly incorrectly) recall, it was a generic U.S. Army soldier, circa 1880, defending his fort. He had a chalk tote board, with scores for THEM and US. He shot three times and sang (and marked in the US column) “One little, two little, three little Indians,” shot three more times, sang/marked “Four little, five little, six little Indians”, shot three more times, and sang/marked “Seven little, eight little, nine little Indians.” At that point, one Indian climbed the wall and clubbed the solider with a tomahawk. The soldier fell and lay dead, the Indian retreated, then the soldier woke up, made one mark in the THEM column, and resumed being dead.
I have to admit always being fond of this gag (it’s entirely possible a similar bit was used in another cartoon as gag recycling was pretty common), especially the compulsive score-keeping that persists even beyond death.
On the contrary, it is my sincere belief that like all works of art, objectionable cartoons can be viewed as valuable to society in general. Via this non-threatening medium, and accompanied by proper parental supervision, past societal misdeeds can present very important lessons. Sure, I’m up against a great commercial machine, (and perhaps just a cockeyed optimist about the greater possibilities of television) but what’s next? Corporate sponsors sanitizing the Monet exhibit because the fan cartoons represent Japanese caricatures?
Watch a movie like Bamboozled and be disgusted by exactly the kind of hell African Americans had to suffer at the hands of Hollywood and whites in general. Dated, of course, but listen to Public Enemy’s Burn, Hollywood Burn and one might begin to understand a lot of the rage that surely exists today. But are these artforms very accessible to the average Midwestern white kid?
When I was in the 6th grade, I was a chorus boy in the high school’s production of Finian’s Rainbow. The bigoted Senator was made up in blackface†, fer chrissakes, and no one else seemed to be troubled by it. My parents pulled me out after Opening Night.
Back to the topic at hand, just let me get this straight: are we saying some people are afraid to laugh because, while the image is silly, it’s also objectionable? Are people really in that much inner conflict?
It sounds to me like the mandate is pabulum. I never could keep it down, though.
† while the Senator is indeed supposed to change into a black man, he’s not required to be in blackface.
Don’t people listen anymore? the days of WB issuing anything remotely controversial are over - THEY DON’T DO IT ANYMORE!
Go to amazom, and search for “looney” in DVD/video - you get pure, unadulterated pablum - the tapes and LD’s from the 80’s and 90’s are deteriorating, and WB is quite happy with that - the sooner they die, the happier they’ll be - ask anybody who’s tried to sell copies of the stuff on ebay - they come down hard on anyone trying to keep that material alive.
The only saving grace is that some of the old toons have lasped into public domain. And some countries have very different copyright laws - in Australia, it is/was 50 years, so somebody there was marketing DVDs containing stuff that WB will never release again.
For those wishing to raise their kids on the classics, I repeat: GET IT WHILE YOU CAN - we’ve gone from ABC, CBS, and local syndication (ah, the 60’s) every afternoon to a few hours a week of butchered toons on TV. On home video, the content has gotten less and less, and more and more bland - and the upcoming official DVD’s take “bland” to new heights.
If you care about these toons, get a laser player, a VCR, and a dvd burner and a huge stack of blank DVD’s - then scour ebay for old lasers & tapes - expect that 1/10 of those you buy will have defects.
Ex - who has approx 90 DVD’s filled with original classic cartoons, and is in hot pursuit of more.
Actually, MTV did exactly that. In the ‘painting the house’ episode that’s been released on video, the scenes of them getting high on paint thinner are cut out of the middle. Also, in the ‘washing the dog’ episode, all references to the dog being high are cut out.
I was gonna paint the house, but then
I was gonna paint the house, but then
But I didn’t paint the house, and I know why
Because
The * National Lampoon * was making fun of political correctness as far back as 1971; listen to the Weatherman rant on the * National Lampoon’s Lemmings * LP (I don’t think it’s available on CD). You don’t have to be a fire-breathing reactionary to resent attempts by the more obnoxious elements of the left to harass and intimidate everybody else into conforming to their political mindset. (Admittedly the right has its obnoxious elements hell-bent on making everybody think the way they do, and I’ll never forgive them for turning Halloween into a “Satanic” holiday.)
I can see what Lib may be saying about CN/AOL/WB lying. It’s not that they’ve edited down the cartoons just for broadcasting to children. They’ve hidden the distasteful cartoons deep within their vaults and will not let them see the light of day. I personally do not believe it’s to shield the children, I think it’s to hide the fact that WB were a bunch of racists jackanapes in the early part of last century. Just like everybody else.
They really should do a show (broadcasted later in the evening if necessary) either with commentary or not-- I’d prefer commentary, especially from the people who made the cartoons. They should hurry up and do this since the writers, directors and animators of these cartoons are dying of all age.
Here’s a relevant tangential question:
There’s copyright law and such so that whoever it is who owns these things have control of them.
Well, obviously there are some copies of various quality out there in the public.
What happens if the owners of the copyrights destroy the originals (or don’t take care of them until they turn to dust)? Can they maintain a copyright on material that they have themselves destroyed, or would it then become public domain?
Because it’s funny as well as interesting. As I said before, (and I’m talking about adult fans of the cartoons) when we see a blatantly racist gag in a cartoon, the reaction is “Ha, ha - it’s amazing how racist our society was”. When I see a silly charicature of a Native American, it doesn’t make me think that Native Americans are silly, it makes me think that the people who made the cartoon were ignorant. That makes me laugh - so sue me. That stuff is a part of our history whether we like it or not; I don’t think pretending it never happened is the right way to go. And I think a couple excellent points have already been made: One, that it often is an integral part of the cartoon, e.g. Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarves, which is widely considered to be a great cartoon, but is virtually inaccessible. And Two, even if the whole cartoon isn’t racist, taking out the racist stuff often completely disrupts the continuity of the cartoon.
I’m not really in the camp that thinks it necessary to show this stuff to kids, but I am in the camp that would like to see those cartoons shown sometime in the evening for adults.
I think it was best stated earlier in the thread…“assuming these were for children”.
I remember all the “Our Gang / Little Rascals”, “Bowery Boys / East Side Comedies” as well as the Sennet and Fleischer cartoons. (Popeye, Koko the Clown, Betty Boop, et ux, et al…)
Betty was originally a dog, ala Dr. Moreau. The decency commission had the studio change her to a person to avoid bestiality issues.
These were NOT for children. They were fill for double-feature movies and the like.
These shorts were, indeed, a product of their times. Do we find them out-of-step with society today? Yes.
Were they a part of media history, ergo American cultural history? Yes.
Were they any worse than some of the minority-oriented sitcoms out there now? If they were, not by much!
I recall the flap over The Simpsons, Beavis and Butthead, and of course South Park. NONE of which were rated “G” in their original manifestations.
Are they HYSTERICALLY FUNNY? Yes.
I think they should ALL be available. Let the market decide. With all of the outright trash that’s out there now, I find it hard to believe that cartoons will set the civil-rights movement spinning wildly back to the stone age. :smack: or did I offend any Alley Oop fans with that non-pc remark?
MP,
Lou
It’s not even that – the conglomerates don’t care that their predecessors were racist jackanapes, since they were simply a product of the times.
What they do care about is avoiding controversy now, and the surest way to do that is to lock up the offending material where some clueless ditz won’t stumble across them and – ignorning the historical and social context of the time – raise a stink as a result.
You can bet dollars to donuts that if WB were to release a DVD collection of old/banned cartoons, with big banners on the box and in the video explaining that the stuff there was racist and sexist and anti-Semetic and whatever else because that was how mainstream society felt at the time, inside of a week, someone out there would still see te cartoons, ignore the disclaimers, raise a stink calling WB a bunch of racist sexist anti-Semetic boneheads, and “Citizen Accuses WB of Being Boneheads” would lead the 6 O’Clock News.
It’s got nothing to do with political correctness and/or embarassment, and everything to do with not giving the clueless citizenry something to bitch about.
The documentary Crumb handled such a situation perfectly.
Sometimes the artist such as R. Crumb, who is very good, does not know his ugly side that manifests in his art until someone points it out to him (for example his renderings of Black men drawn very menacingly). When even he is repulsed by what he made, that makes him human.
It is my sincere belief that if you don’t give me a nice knob polishing, I shall be much agrieved. Hilla beans, hilla beans. There are lots of things that would be valuable to “society in general” that no one has a right to force another person to do. In this case, if you want works of art that don’t come with copyrights, create your own damn art and don’t copyright it. If you want to talk about racism, or illustrate it, go ahead and do it. You can even discuss the racism in old WB shorts if you please, as we are doing right now. Or, like I said, do yourself up in some blackface and go out to a Harlem streetcorner and teach everyone a valuable lesson about our cultural past.
Where is the coercion here? Where is the wrong done to anyone’s legitimate claim on anything?