Bugs Bunny Retrospective Coming

.c The Associated Press


NEW YORK (AP) - A retrospective initially intended to feature every Bugs Bunny cartoon will fall just short of complete, as Cartoon Network executives have decided not to air a dozen of the animated shorts deemed too racially charged.

In one episode, the wisecracking, carrot-chomping Bugs is featured parodying a black-faced Al Jolson; in another he calls an oafish, bucktoothed Eskimo a ``big baboon''; and in yet another he distracts a black rabbit hunter by rattling a pair of dice.

These and other racially charged cartoons were supposed to be included in the retrospective slated for next month on AOL Time Warner Inc.'s Cartoon Network, until executives changed course last week, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Initially the network planned to air the cartoons late at night with prominent disclaimers, explaining that the cartoons were representative of their time and should be viewed as historical records.

That idea was nixed after Warner Bros., which owns the rabbit, expressed its worry that the episodes might impact the company's extensive merchandising ventures.

The Cartoon Network holds licensing agreement with Warner Bros. for the entire library of Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Warner Bros. began pulling the cartoons lampooning blacks in the late 1960s, sensitized by the civil-rights movement, animation expert Jerry Beck told the Journal. Cartoons featuring stereotyped American Indians were taken out of circulation about five years ago.
Just read this article, and I have to say that I am very disappointed. I could totally understand if the cartoons were screened to control groups and they decided to omit it, but to leave out completely valid works of animation because of marketing concerns is an insult to the intelligence of the people who will be watching these cartoons. It is also indicative of history's constant attempts to glaze over very real issues of racism which may have existed in the past and still exist even in modern animation, just in somewhat subtler forms.

(I do have to give credit to the people at Cartoon Network who do make attempts to get these treasures out to the people, and have been known to host screenings for animations deemed "unfit" for broadcast)

Post your opinions below!