I was a little disappointed with this dvd. If you are an aficionado of any types of animation it is a nice little snipet of cartoons from the 30s and 40s, albeit the image quality is horrific as it looks like it is from the 30s and 40s. It would have been nice if these cartoons would have been digitized (cleaned up) then it would have been an amazing little gem and little catologue of animation history, but unfortunately that is not the case. Otherwise what is the point of having it on DVD?
The cartoons themselves are not as 'racy' as I would have had to believe. Obviously they were for this era; "black faced" characters, animal cruelty, sexual overtones, etc. All played down for our time. Of course today's society would have a field day and riot if any of these incidents were ever produced to the fullest with today's cartoons. Well, less 'Family Guy'. The 2 SNAFU cartoons are a gem because they are so hard to find and they are from the early Chuck Jones/Theodor Geisel (aka "Dr. Suess") collaboration. It would be nice to see a large collection of banned and highly offensive cartoons from this era in high quality format but the reasons that will never happen are obvious. Same reason 'Song of the South' will never see the light of day aside from online downloads. But overall it was a disappointment.
i'm very impressed they released these shorts on DVD
BUT i'm also dissapointed that they screwed around with the original cartoons..
90% of all the sound FX you hear in "Scrub Me Mama With A Boogie Beat" are NEWLY ADDED. the new sound FX are too loud, sharp sounding, and COMPLETELY unecessary. if you have seen the original, they really distract from the cartoon. and even if you have not, a lot of them ruin the subtle movements of the characters & how the characters actions go completely in synch with the music.
i honestly dont know why they felt the need to f*ck with something that didnt need fixing to begin with. but other than that i really dont have any complaints
i salute Cartoon Crazys for having the balls to release these animated shorts which were almost lost forever
A great collection, but mis-titled!
Cartoon Crazys Banned & Censored is a collection of 13 cartoons from various animation studios including Warner, Max Fleischer and Walter Lantz, created in a period from around 1933-1947. It's a fine assortment of styles for anyone interested in American cultural history and who can bear to see shameless stereotypes of African-Americans and Irish immigrants and who can endure some pretty full-on sexism.
However, the implication of the title of this collection is that these cartoons were too racy or hot for the Hayes Office at the time and were either banned or censored when they were new. I doubt it. Perhaps a more accurate title would have been "Politically Incorrect & Culturally Irrelevant Cartoons".
Of course, any thinking person has to deplore the racist stereotypes of fat, black mammies and their pickaninnies (of which there are more than their fair share to be found here), but the strongest sexual content is the suggestion of a slap to the backside of a cigarette girl. We see her reaction, but not the contact. Bad, yes, but hardly meriting a "ban", particularly in the late 1940s.
The notes on each cartoon, which are included as an extra on the disk, give a list of why this cartoon was deemed to be Banned or Censored, but again, I have doubts as to these being the reason that these cartoon are no longer seen; mostly, they have limited modern appeal. Many are black-and-white and most are simple moral tales that wouldn't appeal to 21st Century audiences.
In "Christmas Night" for example - which features The Little King - the disk notes that there are "homosexual overtones" in the king stripping to his underwear and with three cartoon characters in the bath together, scrubbing up, prior to the arrival of Santa Claus. Watching this cartoon, I couldn't see any such suggestion. Not a one of the characters touched the other and it was made plain that each was wearing shorts throughout the sequence.
That said, the notes are correct in pointing out that some scenes are simply disturbing and no longer appropriate as entertainment, such as in "Be Human", a mid-30s Betty Boop in which a very angry farmer repeatedly whips a tethered dog and horse, punches a cow in the face and throttles a non-laying hen. The required "happy ending" sees the farmer whipped as he runs along a treadmill, which powers various devices for making the farm animals' lives more enjoyable. He cries and moans and Betty and Grampy chortle at his pain. This one is just strange.
Other cartoons in this collection are:
"Little Black Sambo", which is a fairly lame story of a black boy skipping through the forest, and chased back home by a tiger. Aside from it being a later cartoon by Ub Iwerks, not that notable.
"Booby Traps" and "Spies", two short cartoon features were made for the US military use during WWII. The entire series of Private Snafu is available elsewhere (and recommended). There are the usual, unflattering wartime stereotypes in these two, which is presumably why it's included in the collection.
"Ha! Ha! Ha!" from 1933 sees Betty Boop and Koko release laughing gas into their cartoon, then out the window into the real New York City, which makes for a fascinating mix of animation and live action, as we get to see New Yorkers going about their business on real streets of the era. The notes suggest that this made the collection for showing drug-taking in a positive light.
"Cupid Gets His Man" is just plain strange. A colour cartoon from the late-1930s, the plot involves an army of cupids attempting to matchmake two quarrelling neighbours, one of whom is clearly modeled on WC Fields, right down to his saying "my little chickadee". The cupids are, indeed, naked from the waist down, as noted on the disk, but if there is anything sexual suggested by that, I missed it.
"Opening Night" is a clear rip-off of Mickey Mouse; in fact, if you squint, you might mistake Cubby Bear for Mickey, circa 1930. This is included because one of the characters gets his head cut off with a sword and another bounces off the roomy bosom of a female opera star.
"Scrub Me Mama With a Boogie Beat" is the gem of the collection, racism and all. Yes, the entire population of Lazy Town is black, but overlook the stereotyping and enjoy the boogie woogie! Not included in the notes on this cartoon is the oozing sexuality of the visiting singer, with her wiggly breasts and see-through skirts.
"Fresh Vegetable Mystery" is one of those many inanimate-objects-come-to-life cartoons that popped up throughout the 1930s, the big "mystery" being "Who stole the carrots?" Irish caricatures throughout.
"Making Stars" is another Betty Boop with baby entertainers performing for a theatre crowd. Some babies are non-white and again, stereotyped.
"In a Cartoon Studio" is a very early sound cartoon, interesting only for the clear novelty of synchronized sound to the animators and audience. Included, according to the notes, because the female character gets physically abused for rejecting the bad guy's advances.
The final cartoon is "Easy Does It", a 20-minute animated ad for the Stokely-Van Camp food company, probably made just after the second world war. Although it does feature some sexism - there are intertwining plots involving a failing grocery store and a young man in love with the grocer's daughter - it's nothing that wasn't done far worse in the 1950s in "I Love Lucy". Not worth banning or censoring, the reason this one hasn't seen the light in 50 years or so is more likely to be that it's intended audience is really small-town shopkeepers. I can imagine this one being shown at a Midwestern canned-food conference in 1947, but not many other places.
This is a great collection, and truly interesting on a variety of levels, but don't be fooled by the title: there's nothing here that was ever banned or censored.
One of the most talented animators of the silent and early sound eras, Ub Iwerks designed the physical appearance of Mickey Mouse. He animated the first Mickey shorts almost single-handedly, doing more than 700 drawings in a single day. Iwerks's animation was rubbery, weightless, and appealing, but his approach was at odds with the increasing realism Walt Disney sought. In 1930, he left Disney to start his own studio, but despite his talent--and the exceptional animators who worked for him--he produced old-fashioned, unfunny cartoons that couldn't compete with the more sophisticated storytelling and brash gags in the shorts from Disney, the Fleischers, Warner Bros., and MGM. In 1940, Iwerks returned to the Disney studio, where he won Oscars for his innovations in optical... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Ub Iwerks DVD Release Date: Released the 13 July 1999 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Ub Iwerks was one of the greatest animators of the silent and early sound eras: he animated "Steamboat Willie" and other early Disney shorts virtually by himself. But the films he produced at his own studio after breaking with Walt Disney in 1930 lack the vitality of his earlier work. During the '30s, the animators with Disney, the Fleischers, Warner Bros., and MGM developed a new style of cartoon humor that centered on characters with strong, recognizable personalities. Iwerks's first recurring character, Flip the Frog, who appears in more than half the cartoons in this collection, never developed into a wholesome good guy or a sarcastic antihero. He remained an observer, rather than someone who initiated the action, as Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny did. The rambling plots further... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Ub Iwerks DVD Release Date: Released the 13 July 1999 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Watching this as an adult is really a bit disturbing but yet entertaining at the same time. That tells you how much censorship has ruined and buried a lot of great vidoes. More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Johnny Legend DVD Release Date: Released the 20 January 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Bosko is a great cartoon character, but the Warner Brothers Studio stopped making him in 1934. When Foxy and Roxy did the first Merrie Melodie bosko had stopped being made, bosko is very funny so i think this dvd is gonna get alot of money.Bosko the talk ink kid was the first Bosko cartoon and the first warner bros cartoon.it was made in 1929 but disney did ther first cartoon in 1928 so disney got a head start in ther cartoon making.So mickey and bosko were not made at the same time but they both were great. i have sean the first mickey cartoon and the first bosko cartoon.you can see bosko the talk ink kid on the looney tunes goiden colliction on disc 4 and the frist merrie melodie on disc 4.bosko is great so i hope the pepol hwo buy it love it. More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Uncensored Bosko DVD Release Date: Released the 12 September 2000 Usually ships within 24 hours
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Despite its talented staff, the Van Beuren Studio, which existed from 1928 to 1936, never rose above the level of a "B" cartoon house. Their talking version of Felix the Cat, who appears in "Bold King Cole" (1936) and "The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg" (1936), has none of zest of the silent character animated by Otto Messmer. Their original characters, Molly Moo-Cow and Cubby Bear, are awkward-looking nonentities. The "Rainbow Parade" series was clearly designed to compete with Walt Disney's "Silly Symphonies," but the films lack the polished animation, innovative designs, and focused storytelling of the Disney shorts. Some of the Van Beuren cartoons are genuinely odd: "Opening Night" (1933) celebrates the opening of the lavish Roxy Theater in New York; "In a Cartoon Studio"... More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 09 March 1999 Usually ships in 24 hours
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