Censored Eleven

The Censored Eleven is a term referring to 11 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts that were taken out of circulation by United Artists, (by then the owners of the pre-1948 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons) in 1968 due to racial stereotyping.

Censored Eleven list

The cartoons featured in the Censored Eleven are:

• Hittin' the Trail to Hallelujah Land (1931, directed by Rudolph Ising)
• Sunday Go to Meetin' Time (1936, directed by Friz Freleng)
• Clean Pastures (1937, directed by Freleng)
• Uncle Tom's Bungalow (1937, directed by Tex Avery)
• Jungle Jitters (1938, directed by Freleng)
• The Isle of Pingo Pongo (1938, directed by Avery)
• All This and Rabbit Stew (1941, directed by Avery)
• Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943, directed by Robert Clampett)
• Tin Pan Alley Cats (1943, directed by Clampett)
• Angel Puss (1944, directed by Chuck Jones)
• Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears (1944, directed by Freleng)

Angel Puss is the only Looney Tunes entry in the Censored Eleven. The other ten shorts are all Merrie Melodies. Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land is the only black- and- white short on the list. All the others are in color. Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land was the only Piggy cartoon on the list, The Isle of Pingo Pongo was the only Egghead cartoon on the list and All This and Rabbit Stew was the only Bugs cartoon on the list. All the others are one-shot cartoons.

Several more cartoons have been removed from circulation since this list was created, such as Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising's Looney Tunes featuring blackface caricature Bosko, and the Inki series of cartoons by Chuck Jones. Two cartoons directed by Tex Avery during his stint at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer are often included in cartoon compilations that list the Censored Eleven, despite the fact that they are not WB shorts: Uncle Tom's Cabana (1944) and Half-Pint Pygmy (1948). Also World War II cartoons concerning the Japanese (i.e. Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips and Tokio Jokio) have been pulled from circulation.

On the other end of the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio's life, Injun Trouble, the last ever original Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies short released, is extremely rare due to the racial stereotyping of Native Americans seen in the cartoon, as well as the generally poor critical reputation of WB's later cartoons.

Hocus Pocus Pow Wow, directed by Alex Lovy and released the year before Injun Trouble, is also somewhat rare for the same reason. Both a 1952 Sylvester and Tweety cartoon Tom Tom Tomcat and a 1960 Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam cartoon Horse Hare are generally not shown in the United States because of negative stereotyping about Native Americans.

Official DVD release

At the New York Comic Con in October 2010, Warner Bros. confirmed that an uncut DVD release of the Censored Eleven via the Warner Archives would come soon; however on December 1 animation expert Jerry Beck announced that WB was planning to just go ahead with a traditional retail release, which would feature the Censored Eleven, fully restored, as well as some other rare cartoons and bonus material. As of March 2012, this has not come to fruition.