The Warner Brothers chat ANIMATION question you have been waiting to be answered..... (1 Viewer)

[Jaime_Weinman]

While Disney is certainly to be commended for releasing stuff uncut, it's kind of hard to depend solely on them and Classic Media for cartoon releases -- we are not going to get any Tom and Jerry releases from Disney! Which is what's frustrating: there's only one "legal" source for DVDs of these cartoons, and not only won't they give us the originals, they won't even level with the public about what's going on. (Whether the inclusion of those cut cartoons was a mistake or deliberate, the fact is that WB's "answer" to the controversy does precisely nothing to shed light on what happened.)

 

[Patrick McCart]

This explaination makes the most sense.

 

[Roger Rollins]

Not really:

Lest we forget that Disney removed Goofy's cigarette in SALUDOS AMIGOS, and the versions we see of FANTASIA, MAKE MINE MUSIC, and MELODY TIME are all censored without any notation on the packaging that they are not the original versions.

 

[Paul Pro]

DEAR WARNER BROS.:

As someone posted above Jerry Beck said the following regarding your company's "policy":



This makes you sound like liars plain and simple. This is not being insulting. This is not being rude. This is Fact. I will be willing to forgive if you release the cut shorts in the next release but to treat your buying public like this is really disheartening and unprofessional.

EDIT: Like I've posted further down on this thead I regret the above comment as I was speaking out of frustration and do not necessarily know all the facts.

 

[Jaime_Weinman]

While I agree that WB is not being honest with the public, Beck's comment did not represent an official statement of Warner Brothers.

 

[Damin J Toell]

Jerry Beck's statements != WB lying.

Plain and simple. And, yes, calling WB liars on that basis is indeed insulting and rude.

DJ

 

[FrancisP]

If WB did take out ads stating that these cartoons were uncut then that does make them liars. The legal term would be fraud and false advertising. If I had bought them on this
basis, I'd have been in an attorney's office.

 

[Dick]

I do not yet own the T&J set. It has been said here that all three of the edited cartoons have excised a racial gag of some sort (pickaninnie or whatever).

I'd have to ask: do any of the other 37 cartoons contain uncensored gags of this nature?

If so, I'd say the three offending cartoons might have been oversights (and should have been corrected). If not, perhaps this is the result of policy quite the opposite of the one we were given to believe WB endorsed, given the promotion of the set.

 

[ChrisPearson]

That's right. By mistakenly including three cartoons censored at an earlier date Warners have accidentally exposed their policy to suppress cartoons they fear may give offence to a general audience. If this were not the case, then why did they issue a two-disc selection of T&J shorts when the whole lot would have fitted on four discs? The Jetsons and Top Cat were deemed popular enough for a complete, uncut, four-disc set each, why not Tom and Jerry? Because half the shorts contain racial stereotypes, that's why.

 

[MarcoBiscotti]

I agree Chris, and if ANY of these Hanna-Barbera sets warranted an all-out deluxe collection... Tom & Jerry were it!

Nevermind that these don't even belong under the same H-B Signature brandings as the likes of Scooby-Doo and The Jetsons as these were high budget THEATRICAL FILMS produced in the early 1940's and 50's... but if WB can issue complete and chronological sets of The Flintstones (and if we're suddenly taking such a p.c. apprehensive approach) - chalk full of 1950's stereotypical chauvinistic and misogynistic viewpoints... Surely one of the greatest animated film conceptions of the golden age (which just happens to feature a few very brief racial cliches not uncommong of the time, nor as brazen as other comparitive studios), deserves the same if not BETTER treatment!!


What WB needs to do, is revisit this entire collection in the same vein as the Looney Tunes Golden and Premiere sets, and offer us a COMPLETE & CHRONOLOGICAL, UNCUT collection of ALL classic-era H.B. produced Tom & Jerry theatrical films.

 

[Eric Peterson]

This is the very quote that made me plop my money down on the counter. As I've already stated, I knew about these cuts before I made my purchase, but due to the above quote and WB's past efforts at fixing mistakes, I felt confident that a corrected disc would be issued. I will never do this again. Thank God I didn't sell off my LDs!!!

As far as I'm concerned the DVD that I own is absolutely useless, and I feel guilty having it sit on my shelf. I'm seriously contemplating sending it back to WB.

 

[Chris Dugger]

Do the laserdiscs have the uncut versions?

Dugger

 

[Eric Peterson]

There are a few cuts, but I believe there are only 2-3 total on both sets, and I think they're primarily related to "Mammy 2 Shoes". I'm sure there is someone else here with a more defnitive answer. They are the closest thing to a definitive version of T&J available in the non-bootleg market.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

First of all, I am (generally) against censorship.
I try my best not to support (buy) censored product.

Now my questions;

No one here is FOR "racial stereotypes", right?
Then how do we stop them, if we continue to allow them too exist?

If these cartoons do indeed "deserve better", then what about the people that are racial stereotyped? Don't they "deserve better"?

"It's all fun & games, till someone get's poked in the eye with a stick", My Mama (Your Mama, too!).

 

[WillG]

But the thing is that racial stereotypes are still used for humor today, so why should older material like Tom and Jerry have to get censored for it? Take a look at "Chappelle's Show" for example. They have poked fun at practically every stereotype in the book. I don't have a problem with that kind of humor because anyone with half a brain should know that it is just humor. The censorship is just another way to remove responsibility from people. Why should we have to "Teach our Children" that not all of race/group X is/does Y, or historical contexts when we can just bury the "offending" material. I don't believe that blackface jokes or certain dilect impersonations constitute true racism, which is a much uglier thing. But, maybe that's just me.

 

[Ken_McAlinden]

Pretending that something never existed is not a recipe for learning from your mistakes.

Regards,

 

[JeffSchiller]

I believe that this was an honest mistake on WB's part at the time of initial release and that they WERE planning to re-issue a replacement disc, but someone refused to approve such a plan (i.e. fork over the moulah or someone got PC-cold feet) and now WB has to backpedal. That's probably why it took 6-7 months to finally make a statement.

Anyway, it's still a mistake that should be rectified. I hope they decide to do so on the second volume of T&J. I won't be picking up either set until I learn what the deal is with the second volume (if there is one). I also won't be pre-ordering the next volume of LTGC...

Regards,
Jeff

 

[Robert Crawford]

Give that man a cigar! If you take a step back and really look at the circumstances involved in this situation including some of the things rumored and written about on the internet, you can smell upper management's hands all over this pig of a situation. It smells bad and it smells like a decision made by people not emotionally attached to their product.







Crawdaddy

 

[Michael Elliott]

I think this could go further than just the movies. At one point in history or another, people were hated for one reason or another. I think Maltin nailed it on the head when he said parents should take those shorts and explain to kids why they were made when they were and to show how far this country has come in all those years.

At one point in time, blackface jokes were considered funny. Not racist but funny. In today's world WHITE CHICKS is considered funny. Not racist but funny. Perhaps 50 years from now people will look at WHITE CHICKS the same way we're looking at these T&J shorts now.

 

[Kevin/M]

Taking into account: snapper cases, the Almost Complete lack of Decent Powerpuff Girls DVD's (They treat Teen Titans better than PPG for crying out loud), the Space Ghost Coast to Coast DVD's (It would be redundant to go over what's wrong with them again. All i'll say is that 'and you guys thought Universal was cheap with Quantum Leap Season 2'), and the fact that WHV couldn't even release The West Wing: season 2, Kung Fu: Season 1, and others in their correct Aspect Ratio, I could've easily seen the Tom and Jerry Issue coming, as it's a textbook example of Warner's imcompetence, not just in their animation department (By that end, i'm curious as to how bad WHV Mutilated Murphy Brown)



IF we could get a smaller, more commodity DVD Company (along the lines of Shout! Factory) to buy rights To Tom and Jerry, we could get a complete, uncut Set. But until that happens, we get to deal with Warner's crap