Censored Eleven
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The Censored Eleven is a group of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons that were withheld from syndication by United Artists in 1968. UA owned the distribution rights to the Associated Artists Productions library at that time, and decided to pull these eleven cartoons from broadcast because they are based around racist depictions of Blacks and are deemed too offensive for contemporary audiences. The ban has been upheld by UA and the successive owners of the Looney Tunes catalog to this day, and these shorts have not been officially broadcast on television since the late 1960s.
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[edit] Controversy
Many cartoons from previous decades are routinely censored on television, video, and DVD today. Usually, the only censorship deemed necessary is the cutting of the occasional racist joke or instance of graphic violence. For example, one classic cartoon gag, most prominent in MGM's Tom and Jerry cartoons, is the transformation of characters into a blackface caricature after an explosion or an automobile back-fire. Such small amounts of objectionable material only require relatively minor cuts in the cartoon to make it palatable to censors. However, in the case of the Censored Eleven, racist themes are so essential to the cartoons that the copyright holders believe that no amount of selective editing can ever make them acceptable for distribution.
Of the cartoons included in the Censored Eleven, animation historians and film scholars are quickest to defend the two directed by Bob Clampett, Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs and Tin Pan Alley Cats. The former, a jazz-based parody of Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, is frequently included on lists of the "greatest" cartoons ever made, while the latter is a hot jazz re-interpretation of Clampett's now-classic 1938 short Porky in Wackyland. In a Usenet message on the newsgroup rec.arts.animation writer and author Michelle Klein-Hass wrote:
- ". . . some even look at Clampett's Jazz cartoons and cry racism when Clampett was incredibly ahead of his time and was a friend to many of the greats of the LA jazz scene. All of the faces you see in Tin Pan Alley Cats and Coal Black And De Sebben Dwarves are caricatures of real musicians he hung out with at the Central Avenue jazz and blues clubs of the '40s. He insisted that some of these musicians be in on the recording of the soundtracks for these two cartoons." -- message posted on February 24, 2002
When he obtained distribution rights to all pre-1948 Warner Bros. cartoons in 1986, Ted Turner vowed that he would not distribute or air any cartoons from the Censored Eleven.
Since Time Warner bought Turner Broadcasting, and with it, the cartoons in 1996, this policy has largely been upheld, but has also shown signs of weakening. A total of twelve Bugs Bunny films were not aired on Cartoon Network during its "June Bugs" marathon in 2001, for example, but in 2003, Warner Bros. began to release DVD collections of classic cartoons entitled Looney Tunes: The Golden Collection. While none of the shorts included on the disks are part of the Censored Eleven, many of the cartoons that were included were routinely censored on television, but were included uncut on DVD. Furthermore, each DVD from Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3 opens with a foreword by Whoopi Goldberg, where she warns the audience about some of these shorts, stating that - although the behaviour was and is not acceptable - the cartoons depicting this are a vital part of history, and should not be forgotten. The Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4 collection includes a similar, written disclaimer on each disc.
Despite the efforts of UA, Turner, and Time Warner, many of the Censored Eleven are available on bootleg video. Jungle Jitters and All This and Rabbit Stew are now in the public domain, and frequently turns up on home video releases and the Internet.
[edit] Censored Eleven list
The cartoons in the Censored Eleven are:
- Hittin' the Trail to Hallelujah Land (1931, directed by Rudolph Ising)
- Sunday Go to Meetin' Time (1936, directed by Friz Freleng)
- Clean Pastures (1937, directed by Freleng)
- Uncle Tom's Bungalow (1937, directed by Tex Avery)
- Jungle Jitters (1938, directed by Freleng)
- The Isle of Pingo Pongo (1938, directed by Avery)
- All This and Rabbit Stew (1941, directed by Avery)
- Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943, directed by Robert Clampett)
- Tin Pan Alley Cats (1943, directed by Clampett)
- Angel Puss (1944, directed by Chuck Jones)
- Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears (1944, directed by Freleng)
Angel Puss is the only Looney Tunes entry in the Censored Eleven. The other ten shorts are all Merrie Melodies.
Several more cartoons have been removed from circulation since this list was created, such as Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising's Looney Tunes featuring blackface caricature Bosko, and the Inki series of cartoons by Chuck Jones. Two cartoons directed by Tex Avery during his stint at MGM are often included in cartoon compilations that list the Censored Eleven: Uncle Tom's Cabana (1944) and Half-Pint Pygmy (1948).
