Saturday, June 16, 2007

Saturday Morning Cartoons--Saturday Evening Puss

My apologies if blogging has been a little light this week. I purchased an HP photo scanner, and I've been hunting through my negatives to determine what I want to scan into digital files. I don't have a digital camera, and if I were to equip myself with a digital camera, it would probably cost me around $10,000 to get a Canon or Nikon SLR with the lenses, and flash equipment that I would love to acquire. Anyways, I should be able to post some digital files of photos that I've taken over the years. And I'll be going back to posting more on the political stories.

But for now, let's get into some Saturday Morning Cartoons. I found this Tom and Jerry cartoon Saturday Evening Puss, in which there are actually two versions. The original version has a middle-aged black woman named Mammy Two-Shoes, who goes out for a night on the town. The original 1950 cartoon was edited by Chuck Jones to replace Mammy Two Shoes with a thin white lady. I found both versions on YouTube. Here is the original 1950s version with Mammy:



And here is the re-edited version:



It is interesting to see just how these cartoons can be changed, over time, to make them more "politically correct." That is not to say that I either approve or disapprove of what MGM did to these cartoons. There was a lot of racism within these cartoons during the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. And it is not just MGM--all the studios were involved in making racist cartoons. I just find this very interesting from a historical, and cultural perspective.

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