Dartblog

She may have served honorably on the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and that to some deserved acclaim, but by the admission of virtually all mankind—including those sympathetic to her sundry causes—Whoopi Goldberg is not a funny person.

So why is Whoopi Goldberg at the start of each newly-released Looney Tunes DVD telling us what we are and are not supposed to find funny? Perhaps that is a job best given to the funnymen behind those cartoons. They, after all, are the authority on the comedic interpretation of falling anvils. But they aren’t “people of color”. They just drew characters of color doing wacky things. Better to have a tired was disclaim these pieces of art than to allow their creators to comment or, heaven forfend, to allow the works to stand on their own.

Because, given free reign, impressionable young minds (can these cartoons even compete with Nickelodeon’s current offerings for the attention of impressionable young minds?) might see the positive role models of Yosemite Sam or Tweety’s grandmother followed by Random Curbside Black Guy and draw the paleolithic conclusion that whitegood; blackbad; firehot. Do we think so low of our children?

Moreover, do we think so low of their visual acuity that they wouldn’t note the fact that Yosemite Sam is murderous or that Tweety’s grandmother is disturbingly preoccupied with bondage?

This talk is all as silly as the Looney Tunes themselves. They were innovative, imaginative, and occasionally brilliant pieces of art. To force a patronizing disclaimer upon us is no better than hanging a large ‘WE HAVE DECIDED THAT THIS WORK IS INCORRECT; DO NOT ENJOY IT’ placard next to certain paintings at the Met. The Looney Tunes episodes have original symphonic scores, dazzling colors, hilarious slapstick, and cute talking animals. Idealogues in Hollywood are saying something pretty awful about us when they stuff DVD releases with this politically-correct dreck.

UPDATE: Professor David Ehrlich, who knows a lot more than I about the animation biz, e-mails:

It’s just packaging and promotion, nothing more, no pc conspiracy.

Russian animation from the 60s and 70s is magnificent, but to package it for Americans, an L.A. DVD distributor had a few lines spoken at the head of each title by famous dancer Baryshnikov and the whole series entitled “Stories from my Childhood,” meaning his. Clearly the guy never had time to watch these works as a child, but the distributor assumed that the only Russian that naive Americans might recognize would be Baryshnikov.