Pet peeves in cartoons

[cbrubaker]

List some of the common pet peeves in classic cartoons released on video or rerun in TV. The peeves doesn't have to be your's, although it can be. Here's some -

1. Reissue titles/credits completly removed
2. Redubbed voices/changed music/laughtracks being added to theatrical shorts
3. Some scenes edited out/replaced due to "questionable" contents
4. Huge TV ratings box over the cartoon
5. Scenes being placed out of order.
6. DVNR

Any others?

[frizfrelengfan]

I don't like replaced titles such as the a.a.p., UM&M TV, or Blue Ribbon titles, but it's not the worst thing that they have done with cartoons. The worst is editing scenes out.

By TV ratings box do you mean the logo? That's the second worst thing. Especially the animated ones and the ones that stay on the screen a long time.

[Jon Cooke]

7. Time compression (cartoons sped up from original speed)
8. Network TV logos in the corner of the screen


-Jon

[Bobby Bickert]

9. Redrawn/colorized B&W cartoons.

[RetroMan]

I too gripe about the unnecessary cuts, especially those cases where scenes are clipped due to time compression.

I also remeber seeing Harveytoons (or Noveltoons??) on tv a long time ago that not only had the credits removed, but the titles and studio logos as well (without replacements).

[Lee Glover]

10. Cartoons cropped to make them "widescreen" (e.g. the UK version of The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection DVD set, and the BBC's treatment of the Looney Tunes shorts).

[Debbie]

Here's no doubt a common Pet Peeve:
11. That Classic Cartoons seem to be vanishing from TV...(and in that category I'd also include The Flintstones and other early HB shows like Yogi Bear and the rest as well as the classic theatricals from WB, Disney,MGM, Terrytunes, Walter Lantz and Fleisher/Famous Studios. ) True, you can get some of them on DVD...but in a way it's not the same.

[RetroMan]

Here's no doubt a common Pet Peeve:
11. That Classic Cartoons seem to be vanishing from TV...True, you can get some of them on DVD...but in a way it's not the same.

Which reminds me of something else:

12. The extintion of the theatrical cartoon. I really wish I could see animated short subjects shown in mainstream theatres, classic or otherwise, before a movie. Heck! they should bring back double features and newsreels... I mean it, but I digress.

(come to think of it, they should bring good and original filmmaking back too!)

[Miss Marnie]

I don't like replaced titles such as the a.a.p., UM&M TV, or Blue Ribbon titles, but it's not the worst thing that they have done with cartoons. The worst is editing scenes out.

Darn right. That's why I take comfort in the fact that I have my videos from long ago and that Warner Bros. is releasing uncut, uncensored DVDs.

Now it's time to play Agree or Disagree:

1. Reissue titles/credits completly removed


Not really a pet peeve for me, but after years of watching the Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show's fake opening cards, I don't care much for it.

2. Redubbed voices/changed music/laughtracks being added to theatrical shorts


The redubbed voices I understand, particularly with Mammy Two Shoes (but I grew up watching versions where she does sound like an angry black lady instead of a bland one). The laugh tracks I understand since I do remember seeing some Pink Panther cartoons on TNT that had laugh tracks on it. But where and when did they ever change music?

3. Some scenes edited out/replaced due to "questionable" contents

That's EVERYONE'S problem with classic animation on network and cable TV (not to be mean or anything, but I notice that it's a recurring theme in this forum). My problem is not only with censorship of scenes due to questionable content, but with leaving in scenes that are almost as offensive as the ones they cut out (and this applies to both classic and current animation).

Say for example in a Daffy Duck cartoon (this is hypothetical), a scene where Daffy soliloquizes flippantly until Elmer shoots him in the head gets overlaid with a still shot of an empty meadow or jumps to a shot of Daffy's beak on the ground. Then you see in a later scene Bugs is dressed up as a woman and uses his "feminine" wiles to persuade Elmer to get "her" a duck for dinner. You then go to a shot of Elmer chasing Daffy and blasting him and that is left uncensored. Are we to assume that Daffy getting shot point blank in the face is unacceptable, but Elmer chasing Daffy while shooting him is okay, so long as the cartoon ends with a punchy one-liner from Bugs (and in the hypothetical cartoon, it does)?

And so goes the hypocrisy of censorship...

4. Huge TV ratings box over the cartoon

Same here, although I've grown to accept it and there are times when they can be funny (like when someone slaps on a TV-14 rating on a classic cartoon that would normally be rated TV-G [although a TV-PG rating would be more appropriate for classic cartoons because of the "adult" contents])

5. Scenes being placed out of order.


I've never experienced that, although I did hear that the WB version of "A Star Is Bored" had scenes rearranged.

6. DVNR

What's that?

7. Time compression (cartoons sped up from original speed)

Rarely if ever have I come across a time-compressed cartoon.

8. Network TV logos in the corner of the screen


Like I said with the TV ratings, I've grown to accept this. Also, I think keeping the network TV logo on is a plus in some cases. Say you saw a classic cartoon on Cartoon Network or Boomerang that was notorious for being edited in some parts and then you see the cartoon on CN or Boomerang and it's uncut. That logo is proof that someone at that network had a big steel pair to pull a stunt like that.

9. Redrawn/colorized B&W cartoons.

Colorized is okay as long as it's done on computer. Redrawn/hand-colorized? Not so much...


10. Cartoons cropped to make them "widescreen" (e.g. the UK version of The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection DVD set, and the BBC's treatment of the Looney Tunes shorts).


Does the US version of The Pink Panther DVD do that as well?


11. That Classic Cartoons seem to be vanishing from TV...(and in that category I'd also include The Flintstones and other early HB shows like Yogi Bear and the rest as well as the classic theatricals from WB, Disney,MGM, Terrytunes, Walter Lantz and Fleisher/Famous Studios. ) True, you can get some of them on DVD...but in a way it's not the same.


Are you nuts? I think it's great that classic cartoons are on DVD, especially if they're uncut and uncensored, which is a far cry from what TV has done to them (edits for time and content).

12. The extintion of the theatrical cartoon.

I don't really think theatrical cartoons became extinct. I think they burned out because of the advent of television and the fact that the cartoons (for the most part) were one-joke premises and overtime, the jokes and the premises became worn and predictable (kinda like what most people think about Saturday Night Live's sketches). I mean, I get the joke that Sylvester will never get Tweety or Wile E. Coyote will always screw up catching the Road Runner or Pepe Le Pew always gets the female cat (BTW, I find it disheartening that the female cat in the PLP cartoons has no name. Oh, sure, you can correct me and say it's Penelope, but that didn't come until later and you know it, so bite me!) Running it into the ground will do nothing but make me sick of it.

Although I would like to see a rebirth of theatrical animation. Not with the classic characters of course, with new ones that are every bit as funny as the old ones (maybe more).


I really wish I could see animated short subjects shown in mainstream theatres, classic or otherwise, before a movie. Heck! they should bring back double features and newsreels... I mean it...


Grampa, how did you learn how to use a computer so well...oh, my bad, it's RetroMan (hey, fitting name for someone who would post this).

Anyway, I'm very cynical about the idea of the double feature and the theatrical cartoons (the good, original filmmaking I'm slightly skeptical about since there are some good movies swimming in the sea of mediocrity and I am a screenwriter with dreams of making movies halfway decent again). I don't think anyone would want to waste time in a movie theatre for more than 90 minutes, much less 3.5-4 hours.

Bash me all you like, but if I saw a revival of that sort of thing, I'd probably swear off moviegoing forever and hold a deeper contempt for humanity than I already do now.:tweety:

[Nick]

10. Cartoons cropped to make them "widescreen" (e.g. the UK version of The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection DVD set, and the BBC's treatment of the Looney Tunes shorts). Yeah, that really annoys me, and it isn't just Looney Tunes that the BBC crops, they also seem to do it to almost every TV show thats in 4:3 format. You can barely read all the credits on some cartoons!

[Lee Glover]

Yeah, that really annoys me, and it isn't just Looney Tunes that the BBC crops, they also seem to do it to almost every TV show thats in 4:3 format. You can barely read all the credits on some cartoons!

Yeah, it also looks even worse on analogue TV. The BBC cropped the LT shorts as 16:9 widescreen, but you only get to see that ratio on digital TV. On analogue, it's 14:9. Therefore, what you see is a blown-up picture (which degrades it even further), and you lose even more of the image on both sides. :mad:

[Thad]

It must be an exclusive UK problem, because I've never heard of cropping cartoons to look like 'widescreen'.

Are you nuts? I think it's great that classic cartoons are on DVD, especially if they're uncut and uncensored, which is a far cry from what TV has done to them (edits for time and content).

TV introduced the likes of Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jerry, Popeye, and Woody Woodpecker to about five decades of children. That's a lot more than what the DVDs have done, which is the point Debbie is trying to make I believe.

-Thad

[babybuggybunny]

9. Redrawn/colorized B&W cartoons.

am I the only person that like the computer colorized versions?
I think that when it colorized it is more alive.
but every one with his own opinion
also I hate that other countries(beside usa) dubbing the cartoons to the country language(they do this for the children who dont know to read subtitles

[Thad]

I don't think computer-colorization is as bad a thing as everyone thinks it is. It's not like the Korean colorized prints which totally bastardize everything the cartoons stand for. But the computer-colorized cartoons introduce kids to great characters without instantly turning them off by being in black-and-white (though it's sad that's what it comes to these days).

As long as there is access to the black-and-white originals, computer-colorization does not bother me at all.


-Thad

[RetroMan]

I think the reason most of us dislike colorized cartoons is because they don't represent the intentions of the artists that made them (or simply because the colors just look... funny). Sure, colorization might make the films look more accessible to today's B&W-allergic audiences, but consider this - would you enjoy, say, a colorized Citizen Kane?



I don't think anyone would want to waste time in a movie theatre for more than 90 minutes, much less 3.5-4 hours.


Good point... but it would be great to have at least one movie house that specialized in such retro notions... gad I can be such a reactionary.

[cbrubaker]

Rarely if ever have I come across a time-compressed cartoon.
If you ever traded with someone for cartoons that was taped off European stations, then you may have seen these.

Cartoon shorts from European stations is sped up, because PAL Videos only has 25 fps and cartoon shorts shot on film is (usually) 24 fps, so it's sped up slightly because of that when transferring it frame by frame. Transferring film to NTSC video is however complicated, although if done right, you get the correct speed.

[cpdavison]

I came across a VHS tape of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" that I taped off network TV some years ago. The network was supposedly going to restore the bits & pieces that had been chopped out in previous years to make room for more commercials.

It was time-compressed to the point that it LOOKED like "A Charlie Brown Christmas" but it SOUNDED more like "An Alvin & The Chipmunks Christmas!"

[cbrubaker]

It was time-compressed to the point that it LOOKED like "A Charlie Brown Christmas" but it SOUNDED more like "An Alvin & The Chipmunks Christmas!"
From what you described, it looks like whoever transferred the film to video just put one frame at a time on a NTSC tape, where the actual one second of the special only took up 24/30 frames.

[Bobby Bickert]

But where and when did they ever change music?



The syndicated "Casper and Friends" from 1991 replaced the entire soundtracks with new music, voices, and sound effects. It was synthesizer music, and whoever did it just used a small number of stock themes over and over, with no attempt to "fit" the music to the action onscreen. "The Harveytoons Show" restored the original soundtracks to most of them, but not any of the Buzzy the Crow cartoons.



Also, a "50 Greatest Cartoons" public domain video that I got for my birthday in 1997 removed all traces of "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man" from the soundtracks of the Popeye cartoons, replacing it with bits of Winston Sharples music from other cartoons, even if Popeye was singing it at the end! (None of the other Paramount cartoons on this video were tampered with like that.)

[Frank]

Redrawn cartoons
PC edits in Classic Cartoons
Cheap animation in some cartoons
Redubbed titles

[J. A. Boschen]

13. Hideous blue window boxes that cut into the main opening titles, (as seen on a lot of Tom & Jerry Cartoons)

[Debbie]

Are you nuts? I think it's great that classic cartoons are on DVD, especially if they're uncut and uncensored, which is a far cry from what TV has done to them (edits for time and content).

My psychiatrist assures me I'm not crazy (kidding). Don't get me wrong, I also like having classic cartoons on DVD...but what I mean is, it will eventually (if it hasn't already) cut down on bringing new fans to these classics. Most people buying these DVD's today no doubt first saw these cartoons on TV (or maybe even in theaters).

[Thad]

13. Hideous blue window boxes that cut into the main opening titles, (as seen on a lot of Tom & Jerry Cartoons)

That technique is used throughout the Golden Jubillee VHS line, and the first GAOLT laserdisc. I hate it as well!

-Thad

[cbrubaker]

Cheap animation in some cartoons
Actually, the purpose of this thread are to list the unnecessary changes made in reissues of cartoons (like the laughtracks in DFE cartoons). Cheap animation would be already there in the first place, unless it's a scene that was reanimated to fit with the censor's rule (some scenes in "Tijuana Toads").

[Frank]

Actually, the purpose of this thread are to list the unnecessary changes made in reissues of cartoons (like the laughtracks in DFE cartoons). Cheap animation would be already there in the first place, unless it's a scene that was reanimated to fit with the censor's rule (some scenes in "Tijuana Toads").

Well there are some scenes in even high budget theatrical cartoons that do look quite cheap. That's why I mentioned it.

[Javeman]

Redrawn cartoons (As Thad mentioned, I'm not too bothered by Computer colorization either)
Laughtracks (I HATE these. There are cases in which the pacing of the cartoon is completely ruined.)
Censored scenes (Specially the pointless ones, like the edit in "Frigid Hare" which cuts out Bugs line about not returning to work until 1953)
Well there are some scenes in even high budget theatrical cartoons that do look quite cheap. That's why I mentioned it.Examples?

[Miss Marnie]

My psychiatrist assures me I'm not crazy (kidding). Don't get me wrong, I also like having classic cartoons on DVD...but what I mean is, it will eventually (if it hasn't already) cut down on bringing new fans to these classics. Most people buying these DVD's today no doubt first saw these cartoons on TV (or maybe even in theaters).

I'm still not believing it. DVDs would bring new fans to the classics because it would show them how the cartoon was originally released (or convert them from thinking the television version was the original release, when in actuality, it's more often than not formatted to fit the TV screen and edited for time and content).

[Debbie]

I'm still not believing it. DVDs would bring new fans to the classics because it would show them how the cartoon was originally released (or convert them from thinking the television version was the original release, when in actuality, it's more often than not formatted to fit the TV screen and edited for time and content).
All assaults on my sanity aside, (and I'm sorry I made such a joke, leaving myself open to such comments...trust me I won't make THAT mistake again...)Of course the longtime fans benefit from the DVD's...I never said I didn't want them on DVD...but TV exposure is something not to be discounted. If there isn't any version of it playing on TV, the new viewers won't have seen any of these classic characters, and may just buy the stuff they did see.

[Frank]

Redrawn cartoons (As Thad mentioned, I'm not too bothered by Computer colorization either)
Laughtracks (I HATE these. There are cases in which the pacing of the cartoon is completely ruined.)
Censored scenes (Specially the pointless ones, like the edit in "Frigid Hare" which cuts out Bugs line about not returning to work until 1953)
Examples?

The scene of the Rooster staggering home in Henpecked Hoboes (1946).
The scene of Dimwit talking to the police dog in Super Salesman (1947).
The scene of Crazylegs Crane melting in Snake Preview (1973).
Some of Pete Burness's scenes in the Tom and Jerry cartoons he worked on have herky-jerky animation.

[Thad]

(and I'm sorry I made such a joke, leaving myself open to such comments...trust me I won't make THAT mistake again...)

Yeah, Candy, please try and not publicly ridicule people here, OK? There was no need for your "Psych O" comment. Thanks,

-Thad

[Cartman]

Laughtracks (I HATE these. There are cases in which the pacing of the cartoon is completely ruined.)

Which cartoons had laughtracks? I know I've heard some in "The Flintstones," but were there any theatrical shorts that had these added?

[cbrubaker]

Which cartoons had laughtracks? I know I've heard some in "The Flintstones," but were there any theatrical shorts that had these added?
The only theatricals where laughtracks was added in television are "Pink Panther", "The Inspector", and "The Ant and the Aardvark".

[babybuggybunny]

When I was 2 years old(about 1991) I was scared from lughtrack and every time that the flintstones were shown I ran away to my room:D

[Jon Cooke]

Which cartoons had laughtracks? I know I've heard some in "The Flintstones," but were there any theatrical shorts that had these added?

Not theaterical animation, but a few of the earliest episodes of Rocky & Bullwinkle ("Rocky & His Friends") had laughtracks. They have been removed from the restored versions seen on DVD.

-Jon

[Timber Wolf]

Removing parts of the picture (on the version of PP Cartoon Collection released in Finland) making it look like this:


E
RDS' PINK PANTHE

Pink Panther theme by Henry Mancin
Director: Hawley Prat
Story: John W. Dunn
Music: Walter Gree

Producers' credit often looks like "Produced by AVID H. DePATIE and FRIZ FRELE" and Warren Batchelder's name often looks like "WARREN BATCHELI" in the DVD versions.

[cbrubaker]

For some reason, they never windowbox credits for DFE theatricals, so it has credit problems. I know that most of the Ant and the Aardvark credits are cropped because they never windowbox it, especially the animators and producers credits.