Top 10 Banned or Censored Golden Age Cartoons
By Shantleen Kaur Dhanoa
The Golden Age of American Animation lasted from 1928 to 1972. It began with the rising popularity of sound cartoons and ended with theatrical animation being taken over by television animation. Many studios experimented, competed with each other, and referenced popular trends of the times. But many of these cartoons fell victim to political correctness and censorship, either due to scenes where characters performed dangerous acts that can be easily copied in real life, or because they contained references to outdated stereotypes.
10) Curtain Razor & Show Biz Bugs (1949/1957; Warner Brothers)
Both of these cartoons (especially the latter) became infamous for the ending where a character (dressed up as the Devil) performs a fatal act in which he consumes flammable chemicals, shakes his body to "mix the ingredients" and finally, puts a lit match into his mouth and explodes! Another character applauds him for his act, only for the victim to reveal that he can only do it once, because he is now a ghost ascending to heaven!! This ending was infamous enough to get censored on television airings.
Why?: Because children could easily mimic this deadly act by finding the ingredients consumed by the victims and either 1) poison themselves or 2) blow up their houses in the same manner as how these characters died! (Though reason #2 is less likely.)
But in the likely case of that happening, the Ad Council should've just produced a scary public information film showing the original ending to the latter cartoon and after Daffy explodes onscreen, it should cut to a yellow screen with the following message in red text (with narration): If you don't keep matches and flammable chemicals away from children, you're daft enough to burn the house down!
Censored scenes in Curtain Razor (1949)
On Cartoon Network airings, the unnamed wolf drinking gasoline was cut.
On a 1990 anthology series that aired on Fox Kids, the only parts of the ending that were cut were of the scenes where the wolf drinks gasoline and swallows a match.
Nickelodeon did not censor the ending, but instead cut a scene where a bird version of the blackface singer Al Jolson talks about his "mammy".
Alternative endings to Show Biz Bugs (1957)
Because this cartoon is more prominent, there have been tons of alternative endings made by the channels that broadcasted it.
Here is a complete list of alternative endings from The Censored Looney Tunes Guide (which was also where I found my information about the censorship of Curtain Razor on television):
The most frequently used alternative ending is just the cartoon ending after the "exploding xylophone" scene. The BBC even added an applause at the end of this fake ending!
Before Cartoon Network used the fake ending mentioned above, only the scene showing Daffy drinking gasoline was cut. This scene was also cut on the 1990 anthology series The Merrie Melodies Show.
On Nickelodeon airings, the entire ending played as normal, except that Daffy detonates before he eats a lit match.
When the Disney Channel aired a 1981 package film containing this cartoon, the ending was changed to show Daffy consuming nitro-glycerine, and then he quickly explodes!
Additionally, a good friend told me that when she was younger, she saw this cartoon on Boomerang and remembered that it ended with Daffy eating a match, exploding and becoming a floating ghost!
9) The Barnyard Battle (1929; Disney)
The 7th episode of the original Mickey Mouse series (1928-1953) follows Mickey getting drafted into a mouse army to fight a cat army led by Pete. But in 1930, this cartoon was banned in Germany for being "offensive to national dignity". This is because the cats wear helmets resembling the pickelhaube worn by German soldiers from 1842 to 1918 and the cartoon is seen as a parody of World War I. The physical examination scene is also cut in some television airings, for being deemed somewhat disturbing.
8) Skeleton Dance (1929; Disney)
In March 1931, The New York Times reported that this cartoon had been banned in Denmark for being "too macabre". Which is unsurprising, because this was the same reason that The Mad Doctor (1933) was banned in Britain and Germany!
Being the first entry in the Silly Symphonies series (1929-1939, which mostly consists of one-shot cartoons), Skeleton Dance follows a group of four human skeletons dancing in a graveyard and besides a couple of jump scares and bizarre imagery, that's it. There are creepy closeups (jump scares), two cats and an owl losing their fur and feathers from shock, skeletons dancing in a bizarre and unrealistic manner, a skeleton using his mate as a xylophone and another skeleton using a living cat's tail as a cello!!!
No wonder the Danes refused to show this cartoon in their cinemas, it is one of the scariest Golden Age cartoons ever!!!
The saving grace is that the cartoon ends with a rooster's crow signifying the break of dawn and the skeletons becoming a human wheel as they scramble back into their graves, never to be seen again, until sunset!
7) The Shindig (1930; Disney)
While this Mickey Mouse cartoon follows an innocent story about Mickey and Minnie performing at a barn dance, it was banned in Ohio for featuring a scene where Clarabelle Cow is shown reading the erotic romance novel Three Weeks (1907), before hiding it under a bed of straw when Horace Horse-Collar arrives. Even though I found Skeleton Dance terrifying, I put The Shindig one place lower for visually referencing a book about sex! The Ohio authorities probably feared that children would go hunting for a copy of Three Weeks at their local libraries after watching this cartoon. But then again, Three Weeks may also have been banned.
6) Red Hot Mamma (1934; Fleischer)
Question, what happens when you sleep beside an unguarded fireplace on a freezing winter's day?
According to this Betty Boop cartoon, you dream that you're in Hell, "freshman" demons go to school just to get burnt black, you (Betty) sing Hell's Bells, Satan turns up the heat and you (Betty) have to use your icy breath to turn the heat down!
In Britain, this cartoon was barred from being shown in cinemas by the British Board of Film Classification, for portraying Hell in a comedic light, which was considered blasphemous at the time.
5) Good Noose (1962; Warner Brothers)
This cartoon just screams "BAN ME!!!"
Why?: Because it's about Daffy Duck stowing away on a ship and after learning that the Captain and his even more sadistic parrot Mr. Tristan hang stowaways, he has to lie to them that he's a famous magician, just to avoid getting hanged! But Mr. Tristan, eager to see a noose tied around Daffy's neck, sabotages Daffy by locking him in a chest during an escapology act where Daffy tries to get out of the chest in a brown sack. Daffy doesn't come out until 10 days later and scolds Mr. Tristan for sabotaging his act.
Then Daffy blows up the ship. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get away with it. The story ends with the Captain, now in a barrel, out at sea and pulling Daffy on a noose like he's pulling a dog on a leash. Not only is Good Noose considered one of the worst Daffy Duck cartoons, but it has also been banned and censored on American television, with scenes showing Daffy with a noose around his neck and Mr. Tristan locking Daffy in a chest getting cut, since the latter scene can be easily imitated by children at home.
4) Injun Trouble (1969; Warner Brothers)
Not only is this cartoon known for being the 1,000th and final classic Looney Tunes cartoon, but it is also notoriously boring and racist towards Native Americans! Here Cool Cat drives into an Indian reservation where he is exposed to Native Americans doing stereotypical routines. He then visits the town of Hotfoot, where Cat plays poker, cuts a hole out of the background and says: "So cool it now, you hear?" before entering the hole. Because of how insensitive the cartoon is, it's been barred from an official home video release and rarely airs on American television, making it one of the rarest Warner Brothers cartoons.
3) Tokio Jokio & Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips (1943/1944; Warner Brothers)
These are probably the most infamous cartoons produced by the US during the Second World War. Not only are they unfunny and dull, but they are also really offensive towards Japanese people! The latter cartoon is rarer and more notorious because back in the 1990's, it was included on a VHS and laserdisc set, but it was later pulled from the set after criticism from Japanese Americans. Only bits-and-pieces of these cartoons were played on television due to racial stereotyping.
2) Plane Dumb (1932; Van Bueren)
In more recent years, this cartoon has never aired on television due to its stereotypical depiction of Native Africans and African Americans. The short follows two young men named Tom and Jerry (not be confused with the MGM cat-and-mouse duo of the same name) who, whilst flying on a plane to Africa, put on blackface and imitate African American accents in grating voices.
Then they ride a whale to Africa where they, terrified of Africa's wildlife, hide in a cave.
Cut to a black abyss where all you can see are the main characters' eyes and thick lips, though at one point, the grey outlines of their heads also appear, which is much creepier than just looking at their eyes and mouths in the dark!
The lights did occasionally come on to show a giant bat slowly flying towards the camera and singing blackface skeletons, who perform a traditional "Negro" song, before crumbling apart. Tom and Jerry are so horrified by the skeletons' performance, that they rub off their makeup, run out of the cave and get chased by cannibals, which is how the cartoon ends!
But it is nowhere near as infamous as...
1) The CENSORED Eleven (1931-1944; Warner Brothers)
Why are these cartoons #1?
Because they are so notorious, that they should be known as the Banned Eleven instead!!
Since 1968, these 11 cartoons have been barred from airing on television (aside from short snippets) as well as from official home video release (despite one failed attempt) due to their racist depictions of African Americans. In more recent years, most of these cartoons received mixed-to-negative responses from critics, although Bob Clampett's cartoons are the exceptions.
List of cartoons:
Hitting the Trail for Hallelujah Land (1931; PD)
Sunday Go Meeting Time (1936)
Clean Pastures (1937)
Uncle Tom's Bungalow (1937)
Jungle Jitters (1938; PD)
The Isle of Pingo-Pongo (1938)
All This and Rabbit Stew (1941; PD)
Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarves (1943)
Tin Pan Alley Cats (1943)
Angel Puss (1944)
Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears (1944)