Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips

In 1944 the United States was at war with (among others) The Empire of Japan. This cartoon reflects the United States attitude towards Japan at that time. The cartoon's title is a play on the verb "nip" as in "bite" and "Nip", a then-widely used slur for Japanese people, based on the fact that the Japanese word for "Japan" is "Nippon".

This cartoon is so full of racial slurs and racial stereo types that it could drive the politically correct to the brink of insanity. Which may or may not be a bad thing depending on your point of view. While I wouldn't sit down and watch this with my Asian friends (for fear of offending them) I do understand that this short was made during a different era. Japan committed an act of terror against our country, the politically correct didn't exist, and the whole countries attitude was "lets get these guys". 

It should be noted that this cartoon was not one of the censored 11 and was  occasionally shown on TV in syndicated package's. It was however one of the 12 cartoons pulled from Cartoon Network's June Bugs 2001 marathon by order of AOL Time Warner due to stereotypes of Japanese people. In reality, AOL knows that people of Asian decent spend money on their products too and there is no way hell they would be willing risk offending customers and losing all that money over some cartoon.

Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips debuted on home video in December 1991 on the first Golden Age of Looney Tunes collection. The niche market format did not cause a stir, but when the 5 disc set was later issued in the more accessible VHS format on 10 separate tapes, Japanese rights groups protested its distribution, and both releases were withdrawn. Reissues for both formats replaced the cartoon with Racketeer Rabbit. The VHS reissue combined volumes 4 and 7 of the 10 tape set.

Hare Force

Although the title is an obvious play on Air Force, this cartoon's plot has nothing to do with the military. Hare Force may not be appropriately named but it is indeed a classic.

On a cold and snowy night, Bugs is stuck outside looking for a warm place to rest his head. Granny has just tucked Sylvester her dog in for the night when she hears a knock at the door. She opens it and sees a half-frozen Bugs Bunny, who is exaggerating his sorry plight for effect. Bugs manages to wangle his way into the good graces, and more importantly, the house, belonging to the old lady. Granny lets Bugs sleep right next to Sylvester in front of the fireplace and even though Granny tells Sylvester to be nice to the bunny, Sylvester takes an instant dislike to Bugs. As soon as she leaves the jealous dog throws Bugs back out in the cold. Bugs plays on the dog's pity to get back in but can't resist a dirty trick and Bugs and Sylvester take turns throwing each other out into the night.  Finally they get into a schtick where they are each throwing the other out the front door in turn, in quick succession. The old lady, fed up with all the bickering by now, intervenes (out of frame) and tells them both to get out, when suddenly she is thrown out, startled and indignant. Bugs and the dog have made peace, and are lazing by the fire. Bugs turns to the audience and says, in typical fashion, "Gee, ain't I a stinker?"

The version of this cartoon that aired on TBS cut the part where as Sylvester the Dog is sobbing over melting the snowman likeness of Bugs, believing he killed him. Bugs says to Sylvester, "You're really in a jam now, Doc. It's the hot seat for you, sure."

    

 

The Penguin Parade

In 1938 most of the Looney Tunes popular characters either hadn't been created, were on the verge of being created, or were in their infancy. Through out the 1930's the shorts relied heavily upon music because they had only a few strong characters.

The Penguin Parade is story about the grand opening of a nightclub called The Club Iceberg. All the local penguins show up to drink and dance to jazz music. First up we have the penguin's version of Bing Crosby crooning "When My Dreamboat Comes Home" before his backup trio belts out a hot "scat" chorus. Fats Walrus coolly riffs out his hot piano solo.

The music track is as important as the animation in The Penguin Parade. Songwriter Byron Gay appropriately composed the words and music - while Carl Stalling's handiwork burns up the soundtrack.
Unfornately, I wasn't able to find a print of this short without the "Cartoon Network" logo on it.      

Cat - Tails for Two

Today's post is another Robert Mckimson directed cartoon. Cat - Tails for Two was released in 1953 and marked the debut of Speedy Gonzales. This early Speedy was a meaner, skinnier, rattier-looking creation with a sizable gold front tooth. Speedy would get a complete overhaul in 1955 and go on to star or be featured in 45 more cartoons. Later on, this original version of Speedy is used as an unnamed background character a couple of times.

The name Speedy Gonzales derives from a joke about a Mexican man nicknamed "Speedy" either because of his premature ejaculation or quick copulation, though the name of the character was not intended to be derogatory. One thing to note is that Speedy's last name was given as Gonzalez in Cat - Tails for Two. It ended with an S in all of his other cartoons.

Cat-Tails featured Speedy outwitting a smart-and-stupid pair of cats named George and Benny aboard a ship. Later on Sylvester the cat would be Speedy's main rival.

Unfortunately our friend Speedy has suffered from censorship. In 1999, the Cartoon Network ceased to air Speedy Gonzales. In an interview with Fox News on March 28, 2002, Cartoon Network spokeswoman Laurie Goldberg commented, "It hasn't been on the air for years because of its ethnic stereotypes." This is widely believed to refer to Speedy's fellow mice, who are all shown as being very slow and lazy, and sometimes even appear intoxicated. However, fan campaigns to put Speedy back on the air and lobbying by the League of United Latin American Citizens saw the shorts return to air from 2002.

Speedy Gonzales remains a very popular character in Latin America. In Mexico, the Speedy Gonzales show has been on and off part of the regular programing of Televisa's Canal 5 national channel ever since it was created.

The Mouse-Merized Cat

Robert Mckimson directed this 1946 cartoon. This was the third appearance of Babbit and Catstello based on the popular comedy duo Abbott and Costello. They had earlier appearances in A Tale of Two Kitties (1942) and A Tale of Two Mice (1945). The voices were performed by Mel Blanc and Ted Pierce. I personally think they did a remarkable job of imitating Abbot and Costello.

The plot centers around Babbit's desire to rid the house of the cat . He's not willing to do this himself, he is however willing to hypnotize Catstello into thinking he's a dog and telling him to chase the cat away. Catstello refuses, but fails and finds himself acting like Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Durante, Rochester, and then a chicken, and a dog.

The scene where Babbit is hypnotizing Catstello to act like Rochester receiving a telephone call from Jack Benny is usually eliminated from this short. It's included here because as I have stated previously, I think it's important to show the work in it's original form.

Sunday Go To Meetin' Time

Sunday Go To Meetin' Time was released to theaters on August 8th, 1936. The plot follows the misadventures of a black man as he sneaks out of church and tries to steal a chicken. Instead, he ends up getting knocked unconscious and dreams he has gone to hell for trying to steal the chicken.

This cartoon along with 10 others was deemed to feature racist depictions of African Americans that were too integral to the films for simple cuts to make them palatable for modern audiences. Distribution of it and the 10 others has been suppressed since 1968. In October 2010 it was announced that all Censored Eleven cartoons would finally be available for release on DVD in 2011 on the Warner Archives collection of DVD sets.

Rabbit Romeo

Today I'm posting one of my all time favorite's in "Rabbit Romeo". The thing I like the most about this one is that they put a different take on the Elmer Fudd Bugs Bunny battle. Usually Elmer is trying to shoot Bugs. This time however all he wants to do is set Bugs up with a fat Slobovian female rabbit.

So what your seeing here is one of the few times Bugs isn't hunted by Elmer and one of the few times he has a romantic encounter. Like many of the other looney tunes this one was censored too. On CBS and the syndicated Merrie Melodies show, the part where Bugs uses a goldfish to shield himself from Millicent's kisses was cut to remove the part where the goldfish is put back in the fishbowl, the goldfish takes out a pistol, returns inside his toy castle, and shoots himself (implied by the bubbles surfacing and making a gunshot sound when popped). On The WB!, the part where Bugs uses an electric fan to protect himself from Millicent's kisses, but her mouth destroys the fan, and then Millicent says, "Mmm, not bad for a beginner!" was cut.

Those of you who are Rocky and Bullwinkle fans should recognize the voice of Millicent as the same voice actress who voiced Natasha. That would be June Foray who was also the voice of Rocky. I have many favorite scenes in this cartoon but the one I like the most is where Millicent says Come snuggle my little bunny boo. Elmer with a shotgun in Bugs' back says Go on bunny boo... snuggle.