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[heavy liquid]

Finally, one of my favorite cartoons has a release date!

10/19/04

40 Restored and remastered shorts with audio commentaries by Jerry Beck on: The Zoot Cat, Kitty Foiled and Heavenly Puss. On top of this, we have the next Looney Tunes collection due in November!

The only cover for the set I've found is in black and white:
http://www.dvdanswers.com/index.php?r=0&s=1&c=4299

It's too bad they went with the crappy Tom & Jerry character design from the '70's.

My only hope is that these shorts are UNEDITED and ORIGINAL ASPECT RATIO.

Many of these shorts were butchered by pan n scanning them from thier original CinemaScope ratio. Here are some comparisons:

http://looney.toonzone.net/picts/cinemascope/mommy.html

http://looney.toonzone.net/picts/cinemascope/mommy4.html

http://looney.toonzone.net/picts/cinemascope/muscle.html

 

[Alucard]

Those editing pictures really show a big difference. Were the shorts really chopped up that badly? About 1/4 of the picture is missing.

I like Tom and Jerry but I don't think I like them enough to buy this collection. A Looney Tunes set might be a little different though. I spent many Saturday afternoons in front of my television watching The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show.

 

[shoplifter]

each of which will be presented in 1.33:1 full frame along with English Mono tracks

 

[IJoel]

This will be SO VERY MINE!

 

[heavy liquid]

Those editing pictures really show a big difference. Were the shorts really chopped up that badly? About 1/4 of the picture is missing.

Yeah, you lose a TON when CinemaScope is formatted for TV's. CinemaScope is 2.35:1. Most movies (in theaters) are shown between 1.85:1-2.35:1

Jaws

Cinemascope:

Pan & Scan:

It's funny how many people think that the ablility of a DVD player to zoom in on the picture and eliminate those black bars is such a great feature. I guess they don't care they're missing a huge chunk of the picture.

each of which will be presented in 1.33:1 full frame along with English Mono tracks.

I know, that's the first thing I noticed, too. But according to Jerry Beck (from cartoonresearch.com, who is helping prepare this release), it will be uncut, remastered, and in CinemaScope with stereo whenever applicable. I hope so. We'll soon find out.

 

[Prospero]

Cause for concern, but do we know which shorts are in the collection yet? Tom and Jerry shorts started production in 1940 (when their aspect ratio would definitely have been 1.33:1), and Cinemascope didn't hit theaters until 1953. So if it's all WWII-era shorts and slightly afterward, then presumably the whole set might be in 1.33:1.

I am not liking the way that Warner is releasing these cartoons, by the way: the Disney Treasures series, where everything's arranged in chronological order by production date, is much better.

 

[heavy liquid]

Jerry Beck isn't saying much. It's supposed to be in chronological order (yes!), but the fact that they're saying the set will contain nine Academy Award nominees and seven winners suggests that some of the cartoons may be omitted (no!).

Read what Jerry has to say about it at his forums:

http://www.animationshow.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=8&t=1008&

I will tell you that the Tom & Jerry set is considered Volume 1. And that the best is yet to come.
(Read into that whatever you wish).

 

[Team Rancid]

My only hope is that these shorts are UNEDITED

I wonder if that will include editing some of the more racial stereotyped parts.

I remember watching as a kid that the black housemaid (you only saw her legs or back of her head) was dressed like Aunt Jamima (sp). She also spoke in this high voice (JHOOOOOMAAAAAS!).

I caught one of these same episodes on the Cartoon Network a few years ago and the voice was changed to a more "white" sound.

There were also some old Bugs Bunny's from the 40's making fun of the Japanese from WWII. Anyone ever see those? I vaguely remember them as a kid in the 70's.

 

[levious]

I don't recall the maid's voice ever being different... you sure you didn't confuse it with a scene with the white housewife? I find it funny that old Sylvester cartoons have him referred to as Thomas as well by the owners.

That Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips episode hasn't aired in quite awhile, but was on the LD collection I think, and on the net as well... Wasn't really a particularly good episode.

 

[heavy liquid]

I don't recall the maid's voice ever being different... you sure you didn't confuse it with a scene with the white housewife?

No, they definitely changed her voice to be more PC. I have no idea what will turn up for this set, or how (if at all) it will be edited.

The Looney Tunes DVD collection had a few non-pc shorts:

Bosko The Talkink Kid
Boobs in the Woods has the Pocahontas scene
Speedy Gonzales was banned from CN for a long time
Frigid Hare was banned from CN (who knows why...)
Bacall to Arms (uncut.. complete with blackface scene at the end)

But there are FAR more Looney Tunes cartoons that are WAY worse than the ones that showed up on the first collection. It'll be interesting to see what shows up on the new set in November.

 

[levious]

well you sure that they don't still air the original maid's voice? I don't see how it could be MORE stereotypical than what I've seen.

 

[heavy liquid]

well you sure that they don't still air the original maid's voice? I don't see how it could be MORE stereotypical than what I've seen.

I'm pretty sure they don't. I think whenever possible, she's just edited out of the cartoons and not shown at all. Here's a section of a review of the dvd set that was released in the UK that was censored:

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=10823

First, a little history. In many of the cartoons, Tom and Jerry lived in the house of a cheerful black lady, unofficially known by cartoon fans as Mammy Two-Shoes. She had a habit of setting Tom some sort of task at the beginning of each cartoon, and then giving him a leathering at the end when he failed to accomplish his goals (usually because of the devious Jerry). At some point, however, some oh-so-clever individual came to the conclusion that Mammy's voice was racially offensive... which strikes me as quite an offensive thing to say, considering that it was voice actor Lillian Randolph's real voice. This charming so-and-so went back through every single cartoon and had Randolph's voice replaced with a supposedly less offensive, less "black" variant. The redubbing is so bad that it literally makes me cringe whenever I hear it, transforming Mammy from a cheerful and funny character into an automaton with a voice like a badly-tuned piano. Much to my dismay, these bastardized versions are the ones included on this set, and therefore, I have come to the conclusion that this set should not be touched with a barge-pole. Shame on Warner for releasing it: all they have succeeded in doing is to cooperate with censors who quite clearly had a problem with southern accents.

Most people on the dvd and cartoon forums seem to want releases for all cartoons to be uncut.

Does anyone here that feels these cartoons should not ever be released because they perpetuate a negative stereotype? Maybe they should be released with a disclaimer before the short? Just curious...

 

[Prospero]

Does anyone here that feels these cartoons should not ever be released because they perpetuate a negative stereotype? Maybe they should be released with a disclaimer before the short? Just curious...

Personally, I'm buying them for their value as a historical record, not for entertainment, so I'm not going to buy them if I find they're censored--they'll be of no use to me.

Hopefully, Disney's taken the lead on this issue with the release of Silly Symphonies (loaded with racist stereotypes left and right), Mickey Mouse in Black and White (Mickey smoking cigarettes and slapping Minnie across the face), and Disney on the Front Lines (Donald Duck as a Nazi). The only place where Disney hasn't gone all the way in that respect so far is on Silly Symphonies, where they didn't supply the original cut of "The Three Little Pigs" that had the Big Bad Wolf disguised as a Jewish caricature (though they showed the offending footage on another part of the disc, with the soundtrack removed).

Those cartoons have introductions by Leonard Maltin that can't be skipped over, and that frame them in the proper context--if Warner gets an animation historian to do the same thing, that's fair enough.

 

[XS+]

How could a black lady's honest voice be offensive? The character itself might be offensive to some, but the voice acting? PC is pretty stupid sometimes. And the dubbed voice is horribly stale and humorless.

 

[MASB]

It's great that these cartoon collections are seeing the light of day on DVD. Plus all the extras that tell you how they were made, etc. As for censoring some cartoons/banning, etc., I think the cartoons should be released as they originally were made. If anyone has a problem with that, they can stuff because no one is forcing them to buy the DVDs.

Some of them can get downright silly, but if I have to suffer through Leonard Maltin-like cartoon intros "Everyone before us was ignorant and prejidice, so watch these cartoons, but don't really pay attention to them" to get uncensored cartoons, that's fine with me. Leonard Maltin on one Pluto cartoon: "A scene in this cartoon involves a gun and we know that playing with guns isn't fun." Gee whiz Leonard! Thanks for pointing that out to us ignorant folk! I just think it's silly in a way. Most of these things people get so upset about fly over kids heads and what doesn't, the parents can set them right if they're getting the wrong ideas. I doubt people form their opinions on life from watching cartoons. Well, most people anyway.

 

[bjork]

How could a black lady's honest voice be offensive? The character itself might be offensive to some, but the voice acting? PC is pretty stupid sometimes. And the dubbed voice is horribly stale and humorless.

Because instead of the re-voiced version that is like, "Oh, Thomas, you're such a despicable feline", the original was like, "WHOO CHILE I'S GON SKIN DAT DARN CAT"

I never understood editing of T+J, though... like in one episode, Tom sticks his face into a tea kettle, and there's an explosive that blows up. Tom looks up, and his face looks like a sunflower, with his face darkened and the kettle sides being blown out in all directions. But his lips were white, so someone deemed it racist and last I saw, it's still edited out on CN.

I'm definitely buying this, but I am guessing it won't have Pecos Pest on it, since that was in the 50s... "Howdy there, n-n-nephew!