Censored Eleven

http://museumofuncutfunk.com/2011/10/05/the-censored-eleven/

The Censored Eleven is a group of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons that were withheld from syndication by United Artists in 1968. UA owned the distribution rights to the Associated Artists Productions (A.A.P.) library at that time and decided to pull these eleven cartoons from broadcast because they are based on racist depictions of Blacks and are deemed too offensive for contemporary audiences. The ban has been upheld by UA and the successive owners of the pre-August 1948 Looney Tunes / Merrie Melodies catalog, including Ted Turner, and these shorts have not been officially broadcast on television since the late 1960’s.

In the case of the Censored Eleven, racist themes are so essential and so completely pervade the cartoons that the copyright holders believe that no amount of selective editing can ever make them acceptable for distribution. However, many animation fans view these cartoons as art and feel that despite their overt racism that they should be seen. Animation historians and film scholars defend two of these cartoons directed by Bob Clampett, Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs and Tin Pan Alley Cats. The former, a jazz-based parody of Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Drawfs, is frequently included on lists of the “greatest” cartoons ever made, while the latter is a hot jazz re-interpretation of Clampett’s now-classic 1938 short Porky in Wackyland.

Author Michelle Hass wrote: “. . . some even look at Clampett’s Jazz cartoons and cry racism when Clampett was incredibly ahead of his time and was a friend to many of the greats of the LA jazz scene. All of the faces you see in Tin Pan Alley Cats and Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs are caricatures of real musicians he hung out with at the Central Avenue jazz and blues clubs of the 1940’s. He insisted that some of these musicians be in on the recording of the soundtracks for these two cartoons.”