Who doesn't love cartoons? The Man, that's who.
They insist on editing away those wonderful animated moments of horrifying violence, profanity and outright bigotry that cartoons from all eras like to slip in from time to time. Typically they only get to slip it in once before parents and advertisers drop the hammer and get the episode pulled forever.
Here are some of the moments they don't want you to see... though upon further review, we're thinking they may have been right.
#5.Donald Duck Gets in Der Fuhrer's Face
The Cartoon:
Donald Duck was basically the anti-Mickey Mouse. For his time, he was rude and crass; a real prick that everyone loved. He's played second banana to Mickey for decades, despite many polls back in the day showing him to be the more popular character. Sometimes, we just identify with the asshole more.
What many people don't know is that Donald Duck's rise to fame came in 1943 when Disney decided to him dress up like a goddamn Nazi and make fun of the Axis in the animated short "Der Fuhrer's Face":
What The Fuck?
Yes, this cartoon makes fun of Nazis, but it's still pretty fucking offensive. At the 1:03 mark there is a Japanese character that is literally painted yellow.
Then there is the gay innuendo at 1:07, with the clearly gay depiction of Nazi military leader and future war criminal Hermann Goering getting rammed from behind with the trombone seconds later, proving that the "tromboner" joke you used in elementary school is a tradition dating back to at least the 40s.
But what makes Disney wish this would quietly go away is the portrayal of Donald Duck as the loyal Nazi (during what later turns out to be a dream sequence).
"Der Fuhrer's Face" was just one in a line of seven Pro-US and Pro-Army shorts done by Disney at the time". Also, they weren't the only ones getting in on the propaganda train, seeing as Popeye did it too (with the subtle title, "You're a Sap, Mr. Jap!"), as well as everyone from Daffy Duck to Superman, so yeah, this was pretty common for the time.
The Fallout:
It won the 1943 Academy Award for Animated Short Film and was voted #22 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time in 1994. The shorts effectively launched Donald Duck from sidekick to superstar, starring in 100 animated shorts between 1943-1961. Still, Disney has worked hard to keep this one out of circulation. We guess Donald enthusiastically doing the Heil Hitler at 1:56 is the sort of thing that could be taken out of context.
See full list and watch all the contraversial cartoons here
6 comments:
Cool idea, but missing are:
#1 Song of the South
#2 Original version of Twice Upon a Time
I have an excellent bootleg of Song of the South. I think this piece was referring to cartoon shorts only.
jpx may i borrow song of the south one of these days?
I'll make you a copy, AC!
thank you very much jpx!
as a kid i enjoyed reading the "uncle remus" stories and remember, vaguely, seeing song of the south in the theater. i would expect the movie sucks in addition to being racist but i don't like to be told what i can and can't watch, so there. if it's bad enough i'll force some of my non-blog friends to watch it next time i host a bad movie night.
We had a book of "Uncle Remus" stories as kids that must have been put out after the movie since the Disney logo features prominently. I always thought Octo's and my Dad read them very well though.
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