The New York Times
After cable TV’s Cartoon Network acquired the rights to all the Bugs Bunny cartoons, it announced in May that it would celebrate by holding a marathon 49-hour broadcast of the entire Bugs collection, the first complete airing ever. Then the network blinked.
Twelve cartoons would not be aired because they contained offensive material, the network said.
Animation fans hit the roof. "These are important historical documents, and they’re being terribly abused," said Jerry Beck, an animation historian. "Adults should be able to see this work."
"All This and Rabbit Stew" is one of 12 cartoons pulled from the Bugs festival, which began Friday and ends tonight. It is a seven-minute short produced in 1941, in which a black hunter stalks Bugs Bunny. The hunter, all massive lips and shuffling feet, is the sort of stereotype guaranteed to generate outrage today. The 11 other banned cartoons, created between 1941 and 1960, contain similarly provocative images: bloodthirsty Indians, bumbling Japanese and savage Eskimos.
The decision not to air the 12 cartoons raises questions, both about popular culture and about how media corporations, which control the historical record of cartoons, will preserve or erase objectionable chapters of their past.
For the Cartoon Network, a division of AOL Time Warner, the Bugs Bunny festival was a chance to plug some gaps in animation history. Then company executives started viewing the clips. "We had a very raucous debate," said Mike Lazzo, senior vice president.
Some cartoons, such as the Oscar-nominated "Hiawatha’s Rabbit Hunt," which features hapless Indians, struck Lazzo as benign. Others, including "All This and Rabbit Stew," took him aback.
The network considered grouping the 12 offending shorts together and airing them with a disclaimer. But, ultimately, the fact that the audience would consist mostly of children under 11 decided matters.
"My great fear," Lazzo said, "is that a 6-year-old stumbles upon one of these cartoons and doesn’t have the wiring to understand the environment these cartoons were made in." The network has commissioned a 30-minute documentary featuring clips from the banned 12.
But cartoons, like other unruly eruptions from the subconscious, are likely to frustrate the efforts of studios, networks and other grown-up institutions to control them.
Already, the banned cartoons can be found on the Internet, which seems fitting. The Internet is a sprawling, unbridled world, a global id. Bugs, Daffy, Tom and Jerry and the rest should feel right at home.
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