Today's daily Hypocrisy

[bushnader666]

scooby-doo for 8/20/01 @ Noon:

A ghostly Native-American stereotype is seen riding on horse, making stereotypical "Indian" hollers and noises. Now, I see SOME hypocrisy here. WB cartoons (or any other classic cartoons) that have this kind of stuff get edited out or banned. (Except "A horsefly Fleas," but that's overplayed). Now scooby-doo, with it's IQ-40 type humor, dated gags, grade z animation, dated "pop" music and so-called nostalgic appeal to gen-Xers and kids who want to be 70's "hip", it doesn't matter.

But to expertly crafted classics that don't have the "hip" factor, it does matter. The same things go on for some garbage cartoon-cartoons like ed edd eddy. (PPG/Dexter excluded) This hypocrisy must be stopped.

[Jack]

I guess you haven't seen the Scooby episode where Scoob and Shaggy dress as buck tooth, broken english speaking, squinkiy-eyed, cymbal hat wearin', steriotyped Chinamen to fool the ghosts... and they choose to censor Tex Avery's "Magical Meistro" of a brief gag that is very tame by comparison...


Jack:rolleyes:

[laugh4me]

Originally posted by bushnader666
This hypocrisy must be stopped.

But alas, if you insist too passionately that the standards be equal, the solution that CN would most likely choose would be to cut Scooby Doo & others also rather than leave the classics uncut... :(

I fear we must ride out the current hypersensitivity craze before we get what we want...

[Gossamer]

I have been reading posts about Scoby-doo and all the "hypocrisy" from the cuts and so on for some time now. You seem to overlook something: Hanna-Barbera has control over all the Hanna-Barbera properties as well as a stake in Cartoon Network. Warner Brothers holds the WB material and Ted Turner the MGM material. Of course H-B isn't going to seriously edit material THEY THEMSELVES MADE! The older cartoons being edited are at least ten to twenty years older than the H-B show in question, often more. The WB execs in charge now aren't connected to the material and obviously Turner's only involvement is commercial. H-B is a relatively new company, a bit over forty years old. Unfair to treat properties differently? Maybe, but life isn't fair. If someone told you it would be, they lied.

[Jack]

I don't think "life isn't fair" is a good argument for CN's screwy editing practices. H-B may be newer, but they don't care about their properties very much at all. It's been mentioned that several Scooby episodes are edited for time, and some are even time compressed. H-B doesn't even really exist anymore, it's Cartoon Network Studios now, and most of their new shows aren't being made by the same people who made Scooby or Yogi, they aren't even in the same building.

People should point out that if Scooby Doo can get away with this stuff, and no one is complaining, then they should be able to air an unedited "Magical Miestro" or "Scalp trouble" anytime.


Jack:D

[Gossamer]

Originally posted by Jack
I don't think "life isn't fair" is a good argument for CN's screwy editing practices. H-B may be newer, but they don't care about their properties very much at all. It's been mentioned that several Scooby episodes are edited for time, and some are even time compressed. H-B doesn't even really exist anymore, it's Cartoon Network Studios now, and most of their new shows aren't being made by the same people who made Scooby or Yogi, they aren't even in the same building.

People should point out that if Scooby Doo can get away with this stuff, and no one is complaining, then they should be able to air an unedited "Magical Miestro" or "Scalp trouble" anytime.


Jack:D


Your last point is your best one. It should be pointed out that no one is complaining about the material in the Scooby-Doos. But Mostly what I see is complaints about hypocrisy and cries of "Unfair!" as to time-compression and editing, the reality is that when these were done originally, there were regulations as to the amount of commercial time allowed which do not hold anymore. But half an hour is still only thirty minutes long. A twenty-four minute show only leaves six minutes for other material (such as commercials, promos, et cetera), so something has to give. That means program becomes shorter-by compression or ediing. It happens often and not just to cartoons. Extra commercials make more money. My observation that life isn't fair was in response to the plaintive tone of argument, not to justify the practice of editing "offensive" material from cartoons. Further Deponent Saith Not.

[Jack]

I get your point now, but I thought the editing for Scooby had been done recently, a few years ago to fit in the World Premier Toons or something. I know the older epidodes of "The Jetsons" were edited in the 80s to fit in with the new episodes made then, and that Top cat had it's opening shortened, ect.

I'll try to avoid "that's not fair" statements from now on. And sorry if my last post didn't make a lot of sense, I tried, but the first part of it just didn't come out very well...


Jack:D

[bushnader666]

Originally posted by Gossamer
I have been reading posts about Scoby-doo and all the "hypocrisy" from the cuts and so on for some time now. You seem to overlook something: Hanna-Barbera has control over all the Hanna-Barbera properties as well as a stake in Cartoon Network. Warner Brothers holds the WB material and Ted Turner the MGM material. Of course H-B isn't going to seriously edit material THEY THEMSELVES MADE! The older cartoons being edited are at least ten to twenty years older than the H-B show in question, often more. The WB execs in charge now aren't connected to the material and obviously Turner's only involvement is commercial. H-B is a relatively new company, a bit over forty years old. Unfair to treat properties differently? Maybe, but life isn't fair. If someone told you it would be, they lied.

But don't forget, H-B's very own Tom & Jerry is edited to the hilt. No more Mammy cartoons. No more un-PCness. Didn't H-B create that??? But it's a moot point. H-B doesn't exist. Bill Hanna is dead. None of the original animators are in active service. Even during scooby doo's time, most of the original H-B team was g-o-n-e. Sure, some stragglers remained, but I bet they left because of lame-brained cartoons or low budgets. Hanna and Barbera themselves admitted that their later cartoons don't hold a candle to their MGM/T&J efforts. Yet still scooby doo isn't sujected to the same standards that more worthy classics are put up against.

Isn't WB/Turner/etc. all folded up into AOL-TW? Ted doesn't control the Braves or CNN anymore. And to use your logic, wouldn't WB people be concerned for cartoons that were made by their same company?

[Jon Cooke]

Time-Warner now owns and controls all the Looney Tunes, MGM, and Hanna-Barbera cartoon libraries. Hanna-Barbera doesn't even exist as a studio anymore (as others have mentioned). The "Hanna-Barbera" name is now only used on productions which feature the old Hanna-Barbera characters (the direct-to-video Scooby movies, for example).


-Jon

[Gossamer]

Firstly, I believe that if you look at the end of the Cartoon Cartoon shows, it reads Cartoon Network Studios, a division of Hanna-Barbera Studios. As recently as last year or 1999 (I haven't seen anything copyrighted more recently) copyright is still given to H-B. That means H-B is stil a legal entity. Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera never owned Tom and Jerry. Tom and Jerry continued in production after they left when MGM closed the Animation Department, from 1961 to 1967. The early cartoons ARE much better, because, among other things, they had better budgets. Warner Brothers didn't really care that much about the cartoons when they were being made. Studios were a business. Shorts were made to keep people busy and cartoons were made because they were booked into theaters for money. If TV hadn't proved to be a lucrative source of income (well, maybe not lucrative), these cartoons would be mouldering away in vaults somewhere if they survived at all. Do I like the edits? No. But to complain that Scooby-Doo gets away with stuff the older cartoons don't is pointless. Pointing out that no one objects to the Scooby's MAY have value. I'm more troubled by the fact that the Walter Lantz material is largely unavailable and only the newer stuff has at present any prospect of being seen any time soon. At least WB, MGM and some others are on the air.

[happyheathen]

If it were not for CN and its affiliates, there would be 0 - ziltch - nada - no airing of any of the 'toons in question.

Something, as always, beats nothing...

[Joe Tully]

Jon's right. HB studios is gone, it's been replaced by Cartoon Network Studios. I think this has happened pretty recently, so that's why you can see some reference of HB on the Cartoon Cartoons. I remember seeing pictures of folks like Tartakovsky and McCracken with Jerry Beck when the change happened, and Jerry visited the opening.