Censored Eleven

The Censored Eleven is an unofficial term for eleven pre-1948 Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes shorts that were withheld from United States television by United Artists (the successor company of the Associated Artists Productions package) in 1968 due to racial stereotyping of black people for contemporary audiences. Turner and Warner Bros. continue to enforce the ban on these shorts from circulation in the United States, as they have not been released on any official home video releases.
The origin of the term's name remains unknown, although the earliest reference to such appears to be derived from Mel Blanc's autobiography That's Not All Folks! released in 1979.
== List ==
The cartoons featured in the Censored Eleven are:
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== Background ==
Many cartoons from previous decades are routinely censored, cutting racist jokes, graphic violence, or scenes of smoking, drinking alcohol, or suicide. 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 backfire. However, racial themes are so prominent in these eleven cartoons that United Artists believed that no amount of selective editing could ever make them acceptable for distribution.
Two of the Censored Eleven directed by Bob Clampett have been defended by some film historians: "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs" and "Tin Pan Alley Cats". The former is a jazz-based parody of Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, while the latter is a hot jazz re-interpretation of Clampett's now-classic 1938 short "Porky in Wackyland". Author Michelle Klein-Hass wrote the following:
Bob Clampett himself explained the evolution of "Coal Black" during his public appearances in the 70s and 80s, and during taped interviews:
The cartoon output of Warner Bros. during its heyday even sometimes had censorship problems more complex in some respects than those of features. Unlike feature films, which were routinely censored in the script, the animated shorts were passed upon only when completed, which made the producers exceptionally cautious as to restrictions. In 1983, director Chuck Jones commented on the television censorship of the Warner Bros. cartoons:
Independent stations that once ran the syndicated Warner Bros. cartoons never had the same type of censorship as first-run networks such as ABC and CBS did for the cartoons. Some stations even owned syndication rights to "a few they consider[ed] racially stereotypical," but never ran them.
When Ted Turner obtained the copyrights to the pre-1950 Warner Bros. library from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1986, he vowed to continue the ban of the Censored Eleven in the United States. Those eleven shorts were the only cartoons in the Associated Artists Productions package not to be featured in the VHS/LaserDisc series The Golden Age of Looney Tunes (with the addition of "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips" in later reprints). The Censored Eleven, despite the bans, have been known to have aired in regular syndication outside the United States.
Since Time Warner bought Turner Broadcasting System on October 10, 1996, this policy has largely been upheld. A total of twelve Bugs Bunny shorts dubbed the "Twelve Missing Hares" were not aired on Cartoon Network during its "June Bugs" marathon in 2001.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHNTv3oQoE8 However, Warner Bros. began to release DVD collections of classic cartoons in 2003 entitled the Looney Tunes Golden Collection with one of the cartoons ("Frigid Hare", which depicts a stereotypical Eskimo trying to kill a baby penguin, and was still seen on Cartoon Network as late as 2002 and featured as a DVD extra in March of the Penguins) featured on the set uncut and uncensored. Also in 2001, Cartoon Network animation documentary show ToonHeads had a one-hour special centered on World War II-era cartoons and two World War II-era Bugs Bunny shorts "Herr Meets Hare" shown in full and "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips" shown in clips in a short montage about the depictions of Japanese people at the time they were shown.
While none of the shorts included on the discs 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 the 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 behavior 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 disclaimer, written on a gold card and merely summarized the point that while the cartoons are considered offensive today for what they depict, they are going to be shown uncut because editing out the racist depictions—and therefore effectively saying the racist scenes were never there and that the racism of the era ever happened—is worse than actually showing them uncensored.http://www.cinemablend.com/television/Why-Tom-Jerry-Now-Comes-With-Racism-Warning-67631.html
American and European 1995 dubbed prints exist for almost every pre-1948 cartoon, but it is unknown if the Censored Eleven ever received dubbed versions, though the Censored Eleven had a.a.p. prints, like all other cartoons at the time.
=== Potential DVD release ===
Turner Classic Movies screened eight of these in 2010 at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood for the TCM Classic Film Festival. Due to heavier racial stereotyping in comparison to the other shorts, the three that were not shown were "Jungle Jitters", "Angel Puss", and "All This and Rabbit Stew".https://www.cartoonbrew.com/classic/looney-tunes-censored-11-to-screen-in-hollywood-20766.html
At the New York Comic Con in October 2010, Warner Bros. confirmed that an uncut DVD release of the Censored Eleven via the Warner Archives would come soon. However, on December 1, 2010, animation expert Jerry Beck announced that WB was planning to just go ahead with a traditional retail release, which would feature the Censored Eleven, fully restored, as well as some other rare cartoons and bonus material. As of March 2012, this has not come to fruition, though Jerry Beck confirmed the shorts have already been fully restored and transfers and extras are already finished. It is unknown if this release has "The Isle of Pingo Pongo" and "Sunday Go to Meetin' Time" restored with their original titles, as full copies with their original titles are known to exist.
Jerry Beck mentioned 10 August 2016 that the WB market is infeasible for DVD releases.
However according to a user on shadowandact.com who spoke to Jerry Beck in 2018, he stated that the plans to release the cartoons have been scrapped due to changing cultural sensitivities, as well as the fact that classic cartoon DVDs don't sell and that this release would not likely make a profit.https://shadowandact.com/free-the-warner-bros-censored-11
== Notes ==
* "Angel Puss" is the only short in the group to be in the Looney Tunes entry in the Censored Eleven. The other ten shorts are in the Merrie Melodies series.
* "Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears" is the only short on the list not to be produced by Leon Schlesinger. It was also the first cartoon to be produced by Eddie Selzer as "Buckaroo Bugs", the previous short released to theaters, was the final cartoon produced by Schlesinger. Also, "Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears" is the only short to not have signs of its original titles surviving. Though "The Isle of Pingo Pongo" and "Sunday Go to Meetin' Time" were also re-released under the Blue Ribbon program, their original titles have been discovered.
* "Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land" is the only black and white short in the group, and the only one produced under Harman-Ising Productions.
== See also ==
* Twelve Missing Hares
== References ==
fr:Les Onze Censurés
Category:Lists