Here's a short video with a long explanation. In 1982, Joe Barbera asked me to write a prime-time Yogi Bear Christmas special for CBS. One of these days, I'll have to publish the whole, amazing story of how this one came to be but basically, it was an impossible job for All Concerned. The show had to be written in about four days, storyboarded in about a third of the time these things usually take and animated in less than half the time the animators needed. To further complicate an impossible task, there was (1) a huge negotiation battle with the agent representing Daws Butler, the voice of Yogi and nine other characters, (2) a storyboard artist whose work had to be tossed and redone, thereby wasting three of the four weeks allotted on the schedule for that task…and (3) a strike by the Animation Union.
But somehow, they got it on the air. It was delivered to CBS two days before the broadcast date and the guys at the network found (correctly) all sorts of mistakes in it…animation errors, missing footage, etc. The animation folks in Australia actually did a pretty good job under the circumstances. A couple of editors did a last minute patch job and the show was telecast to all of America with the errors reduced (but not totally eliminated) and with two key scenes absent. I like parts of it, cringe at other sections…and am not unhappy it hasn't been rerun anywhere lately or put out on DVD.
I mentioned it the other day when I appeared on Shokus Internet Radio. In particular, I mentioned that Snagglepuss had been bleeped when he mentioned Chanukah. I was not kidding. I wrote a line where the lion said, "Merry Christmas! Seasons Greetings! Happy Chanukah even!" Everyone who had to approve the script — which was a whole lot of people — approved it and it was recorded that way and the animation was done accordingly.
In December, when the last minute edits were being done, someone at CBS decided that the reference to Chanukah had to go. I do not know precisely why. At the time, and later when I wrote one article about this, I didn't know even if it had been done at CBS or if someone at Hanna-Barbera had been responsible…but then a friend at the network showed me a memo he'd dug out of the files. It merely said that CBS was insisting on the deletion, no explanation given.
In all my years of cartoon watching, this is the only time I've ever heard of a cartoon getting bleeped. Dialogue is often edited out or redone for reasons of taste or "standards" but in every other case, it's done in an undetectable manner. They redub the words or chop out a whole line or something. In this case, presumably because the show was edited (literally) the day before it aired, they just cut the word out and there was an obvious jump where "Chanukah" should have been. The edit was apparently made on the one-inch master tape because it was that way when the show came out a few years ago on VHS.
As I said, I mentioned this on the radio show. Some listener took it upon him- or herself to locate the video, edit a ten-second clip and to upload it to an online video site. So here it is as today's link…and I remain as stunned and mystified as you will probably be as to why this was done. I thought my people were supposed to run Hollywood but I guess I was wrong.
