Mouse Cleaning
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Welcome back kids! It’s time for the first Tom & Jerry cartoon in my Banned Cartoons series!
Tom & Jerry have a ton of shorts where large parts of them are either cut, edited, or even re-dubbed. For instance, any blackface or Native American references are altered or cut out entirely. The most obvious change that we see today is the new voice of Mammy, the maid that worked in the house. Her voice was re-dubbed in a less offensive women’s voice that speaks without any grammatical errors.
Warner Home Video bought the rights to Tom & Jerry and decided to release the complete uncensored and unedited shorts that were directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera in three volumes. The duo made 114 shorts but the collection excluded two of them: Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat.
It is believed that Mouse Cleaning was excluded because there was too much to be edited and hardcore fans would demand another callback (Volume 1 had a major callback issue thanks to accidental inclusion of edited shorts). Mammy has several speaking lines and the last scene has what Americans would call one of the most racist depictions in any cartoon.
As always, I think that cartoons should be kept as they are. Children that watched them 20 years ago haven’t become racist and they know that acting on racism is bad. Today, children are taught the same thing. There is no need to change history. All we can do now is produce politically correct cartoons and still enjoy the old ones that we all love.
By all means, enjoy the cartoon.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
with all that censoring and politically correct crap going on ud think ppl would be a lot more respectful than they are!
i totally agree with u
leave the classics alone!
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:37 am
eshda3wa, exactly.. people were a lot more nicer to each other years ago..
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:22 am
Actually, no.. people were much more openly racist and contemptuous of others in the ‘good old days’. A person who considers him/herself to be normal, polite, good, god-fearing and kind would think nothing of openly referring to other races as ‘naturally inferior – through no fault of theirs, of course’!! We have history and live footage to prove how despicable and cruel people were.
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:24 am
Well.. not people – basically just Americans and South Africans.
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:05 am
shorof, but you’re talking about when racism was concentrated (slavery, apartheid, etc.).. im talking about in general.. people around the world were nicer to each other.. the west did not think that the rest of the world were savages, wealthy arabs did not think it was fun to treat the help like slaves, and huge masses were not killed just because they are who they are.. true, the time these cartoons were made was during the time black americans were facing segregation but we still have segregation today.. even though hate, violence, and cruelty did exist back then, i believe that there is muuuch more of it today.. whats worse is that those who are hateful, violent and cruel to others are proud of it and never seem to hesitate when deciding to publish a video of them doing it.. i still think the world was a much nicer place 70 or 60 years ago..
July 9th, 2008 at 11:16 am
The way I see it, it’s like they’re vandalizing a historical documentation of how uncomplicated the world was then, in the name protecting people’s right to be offended… And that’s the thing today, especially in America, I’d imagine (having a old close friend there, he’s always telling me about how so and so was offended over such and such) that everyone’s always so quick to be offended. It’s like it’s their favorite pastime or something. Now it’s gotten to the point where they’re actually meddling with a classic, great cartoon. The way I look at it, considering how TODAY’S cartoons are going down the crapper, the one thing I’d blame for that is how squeamish everyone’s getting over the smallest things, that it just seems like they’re jumping the gun in order to make the most money possible.
…When in reality no one really hated Mammy, and she WAS based on what a black women was back then, yes, and she was exaggerated–by that logic, censoring her, they should also redraw Tom and Jerry since they themselves are exaggerated interpretations of what a cat and mouse are.
And in all seriousness, our generation saw worse things than Tom and Jerry and we’re still much more intellectual, aware, and considerate than today’s Spongebob generation.
June 21st, 2009 at 12:01 am
” lets prosecute and slay anyone who isnt exactly like we are and follow the same beleifs ” ….. thoughts of our founding racist fathers and their offspring. and the light skinned people who invaded america , befriended the native indigenous people , and forced their monotheistic ways to people who knew that we are all equal and come from one and we are all one . but things had to change according to the invaders , then “western america ” was born … IT sucks how it came to be , but i guess it happened , were here directly because of it and now all we could do is try to NOT make the same mistake , and not accept people for who they are , even if they are ignorant racists who will never figure out what it means to be human .