It has apparently been announced that Warner Archive — the folks who put out those simple, special-featureless DVDs of treasures from the Time-Warner vaults — will soon release a DVD of the so-called "Censored Eleven." These are eleven cartoons that WB has withheld from circulation due to racist or otherwise offensive content. These are, for the record, Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land, Sunday Go to Meetin' Time, Clean Pastures, Uncle Tom's Bungalow, Jungle Jitters, The Isle of Pingo Pongo, All This and Rabbit Stew, Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs, Tin Pan Alley Cats, Angel Puss and Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears.
About half of these are pretty crummy and a couple are okay…but Coal Black and Tin Pan Alley Cats are masterpieces and they deserve even wider exposure than they'll get from this release. Both were directed by Bob Clampett and I once horrified a Clampett devotee by suggesting that while it was good, Coal Black was not, in my humblest of opinions, Clampett's best cartoon. I think several, including The Great Piggy Bank Robbery and Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid, are better if only because they shape and define more interesting characters. But why quibble? It's nice that these cartoons will finally be available. Let's wait and see if anyone tries to get attention by ginning up fake outrage against them. I doubt anyone will but these days, you can build a pretty good career on fake outrage.