They don't make cartoons like they used to.

[Oompa Star]

A banned WWII propaganda cartoon featuring Bugs Bunny.

It's amazing how people can get during war-time. Nowadays you only see stuff like this in programs aimed at older audiences.

[Kogen]

Why people think this is 'edgy' and 'offensive' I will never know.

[Crisis]

I was under the impression that early Bugs Bunny cartoons *were* aimed at older audiences.

[Dr. Watson]

Cartoons of that era were aimed at pretty much anyone and everyone. And that goes even for Disney films like Snow white and Bambi, despite them being considered the very definition of "children's entertainment" today.

[j-man]

Yeah, this shit would've been shown at movie theatres (like they all were) to general audiences, or more likely to entertain the troops before they went off to fight "the Hun" or whatever. It's only really controversial nowadays; at the time, it served its purpose.

[Green Gibbon!]

Most of the Looney Tunes golden collection sets include a couple of war era cartoons. Some of them are in really bad condition which makes me wonder what ever happened to the original prints. Even if they've been out of general circulation for decades, they must exist in an archive somewhere, right?

[Kogen]

Maybe they let SEGA take care of it.

[Cuckooguy]

Well cartoons were more politically incorrect and contained a lot of racial stereotypes back then. For example, the Big Bad Wolf in DIsney's Three Little Pigs originally disguised himself as a Jewish Peddler in one segment, and people cried it to be racist. In one cartoon Donald points and shoots a gun at the audience because the audience was laughing at him. Mickey even points a gun at Donald at point-blank in one cartoon.

Basically, some changes since back then were cartoons characters had to respect the law (no raspberries at police!), respect for every religion (can't have a caricature of God giving a finger), and respect for every nation.

Anyway I've been watching a bunch of Silly Symphony and Mickey Mouse cartoons. I think the best Mickey Mouse cartoon so far is The Band Concert.

[Rob-Bert]

As an avid Looney Toons fan, I gotta say that Bugs acts wildly out of character in that particular cartoon at the top of the thread, even if it was under Tex Avery's direction. Not sure what they were thinking when they made it.

[Crowbar]

Not so much related to wartime films, but certainly to the general topic at hand.: Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs.

I wouldn't actually call this a racist cartoon, though, as much as it contains alot of very blatant stereotyping, I don't think its intention was to offend. It's understandable that stuff like the one above gets quietly removed from the official records these days (even if I disagree with the practice) but Coal Black at least is just too good a cartoon to be censored.

[Wombatwarlord777]

^^^Although there's a lot of negative stereotyping in that cartoon, It's kind of refreshing to watch something that isn't even remotely concerned with being p.c. I might be generalizing, but a lot of the stuff nowadays seems too concerned about not offending anyone (though I think most of the successful cartoons haven't fallen into that trap).

[Isuka]

A lot of the stuff nowadays is concerned with conforming an homogeneous, flavorless and absolutely forgettable jello of mediocrity.

And this is as good a time as any other to link this: http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2009/01/ ... ourse.html

Some comments are quite informative, too.

[Zeta]

John K. is full of shit, and has awful taste besides. Every piece of work he's done is homogeneous to his own style, but really not good in any way, and is the same joke told again and again. Having your character's facial expressions look like they're coming in and out of catatonic schizophrenia or having a stroke while making poop and booger jokes is not a shining example of the potential of animation. The only real thing holding back western animation these days is that hand-drawn animation takes a shitload of money to pump out compared to using live action, CGI, or hammering something out in Flash.

[Rob-Bert]

Makes me wonder how Japan gets by...

[Zeta]

That's easy. The Japanese are incredibly shy and feel that acting live-action in front of the camera is embarrassing and humiliating. They produce 75% of the world's animation because they don't have enough live-action actors who actually want to step in front of the camera to act out all of the movie and television screenplays they have.

Americans are attention whores, so . . .

[G.Silver]

I'd like to see that attributed to a real source!

Japan makes plenty of live-action, it just doesn't get exported. Japanese TV is full of dramas, game shows, and talk shows, and the nature of the latter two especially don't suggest there's a lack of people brave enough to get in front of the camera. Japan has also been shamelessly manufacturing idols and celebrities long before shows like American Idol came along in the US, so there's plenty of people being "groomed" for show biz as well.

Makes me wonder how Japan gets by...

Last I checked John K. didn't think Japan was getting by at all, he hates anime.

[Cuckooguy]

The death of animation, huh. I don't really think it ever died, though it's true that there haven't been any appealing 2d stuff for a while. One thing I really wish for, though this mostly applies to Disney cartoons but can apply to others, is the marriage of music and animation. Music is such a large part of animations that I wish it was used more extensively and successfully in recent times. When I was watching some Mickey shorts, I noticed characters would sing in their funny voices, and I found it hilarious that Donald would sing and dance to La Cucaracha or Ahola-oi while doing generic normal activities.

I think the last slapstick cartoon I liked was Animaniacs. Has anyone even made any slapstick cartoons after that?

The only cartoons I've liked recently was Justice League and X-Men Evolution (which are both rather old by now), but they both suffer from what a lot of good American cartoons that try to develop an overarching plot suffer from: A beginning, a middle, and a shitty ending that's not even really an ending. Dammit, I haven't watched it, but is Avatar the only Western cartoon that supposedly has a beginning, middle, and end? That in itself it like a freaking revolution for Western animation, which is why my curiosity is piqued about watching it.

[The Turtle Guy]

I personally believe Avatar is amazing, and I think it did have a decent ending in such a way that it wrapped things up and was consistent with the rest of the series. I'd recommend it, although it doesn't really pick up until Book 2 and it is made for kids. Whatever immaturity it may have is lost among the emotional complexity of the characters to me, anyway.

[Oompa Star]

I remember seeing this one on Cartoon Network years ago on a late night, the exaggerated Nazi march refusing to leave mind after so long. An amusing/risque take on the 3 Little Pigs to be sure.

[Zeta]

I personally believe Avatar is amazing, and I think it did have a decent ending in such a way that it wrapped things up and was consistent with the rest of the series. I'd recommend it, although it doesn't really pick up until Book 2 and it is made for kids. Whatever immaturity it may have is lost among the emotional complexity of the characters to me, anyway.

There are only 3 complaints I have about Avatar: Toph's story arc was never really resolved and she was hardly in the last season. She even points this out in the last four episodes of the damn show. Also - Ursa's whereabouts felt like a bit of a unresolved thing, as well as what the hell the world will do four Avatars later.

[P.P.A.]

Just let me use this thread to mention that the Hanna-Barbera The Smurfs cartoon is utterly depressing and a terrible disgrace to the excellence of the comic books.

[Green Gibbon!]

My mom wouldn't let me watch the Smurfs because it had magic.

[P.P.A.]

My mom wouldn't let me watch the Smurfs because it had magic.

I read the comics as a child (or had my parents read them to me, as about 2/3 of my collection is the original French versions, heh) and didn't get in touch with the crappy TV series until a few years ago. Fortunately. Avoid it at all costs and read the albums instead.
[your mom joke here]

[Shadow Hog]

I think the last slapstick cartoon I liked was Animaniacs. Has anyone even made any slapstick cartoons after that?

Earthworm Jim, Freakazoid... although they were both concurrent to Animaniacs, Animaniacs started before either. IIRC, anyway.

[The Turtle Guy]

I don't know why I hadn't ever heard of Freakazoid. I remember Animaniacs, but I have no recollection of Freakazoid at all from my childhood. *shrug*