I have always enjoyed animation. The first movie I ever saw was Fantasia.
But this is about animated shorts, which we now call cartoons. Originally they were made for adult adults because those were the people who went and paid for the movies. Unfortunately, they are now associated with children..
I believe this is for two reasons. First, when shown occasionally in a movie theater,Elmer going after bugs was funny and so it was with Tom and Jerry. But when they started showing them six or seven cartoons in a row on Saturday morning, it became boring for adults. Beginning in the 50s companies like Hannah and Barbera made cheap limited animation, cartoons for TV and that was for children.
While it’s difficult to talk about what has been released without getting into cartoon history, I’m gonna give it a shot.
I enjoyed the the cartoons primarily made in the 1930s and 40s and a bid into the 50s. And you can’t see here that people started at one famous studio, and then went to another and to another. Many creative people began at Bray Studios, and many of their works now have been placed on disc.
I thoroughly enjoy the early Max Fleischer cartoons. They include Out of the Inkwell, Coco the Clown, and the early Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons. And one of my favorites are the 18 Superman cartoons from the late 30s and 40s.
Walt Disney produced a famous line that has been imitated many times and that is SILLY SYMPHONIES. In FLOWERS AND TREES They presented the first color cartoon. I love, MUSIC LAND. The song ‘ WHO’S AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD WOLF” comes from this collection. Sadly, it’s only on DVD.
The people who did the Silly’s , went on to do MGM’s HAPPY HARMONIES. From that we get TOM AND JERRY by Hannah and Barbera, which has just been released in their totality on Blu-ray and uncensored, a big deal.
Then came MERRY MELODIES and LOONEY TUNES from Warner Brpthers. Not the latest ones, but the ones without their famous stars from the 30s and 40s. Great gags and wonderful music. They have slowly been released on Blu-ray, restored and uncensored
Censorship
This is really a big deal. There have been two waves of censorship. First, after the Hayes code was instituted, they went after cartoons, such as Betty Boop. I like the ones where she has the shorter skirt because the censors demanded that her skirts get longer. It did change the cartoon.
Cartoons were heavily censored in the 1950s and 60s as they appeared on television. Mostly, it was for their ethnic references and stereotypes. This totally changed many of the Tom and Jerry cartoons, where the housekeeper was black. A huge amount of those cartoons were just cut up to remove the Black people and many had not been withdrawn from showing until this new collection. And in the 1980s Turner broadcasting actually replaced many of the black characters with new animation.
Warners has 11 cartoons that have just been withdrawn from the market. And while stereotypes of white people are allowed, they withdrew from showing the cartoons stereotypes of any other group.
It was always OK to show dumb white people such as Elmer Fudd, but they removed from showing dumb Black people.
Also, and this affects a lot of the Disney cartoons that were made during World War II, the unkind references to German and Japanese soldiers. I’ve been taken off the market.
So Warner Brothers has put out sets on Blu-ray where they have restored the cartoons. That just doesn’t mean that original content is back in, but they fixed up the negatives and they just look wonderful..
Honestly, I enjoy them most when I see two or three at a time and that’s it. When my friends come over, I like to show them a cartoon before the movie.
And again I know I’m repetitive it’s the older ones from the 30s and 40s that I really enjoy.
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