Vimacone One of the Censored Eleven cartoons that has been out of circulation due to racial stereotypes. A few titles still have some artistic value, chiefly the jazz flavored ones.This short has an interesting censorship history. Before it was originally released in 1937, Joseph Breen, the head of the Hollywood Censor Board, objected to the short's irreverent depiction of religion. One of the guidelines for Hollywood producers was not to portray religion in a disrespectful way. Some historians have suggested that race may have been a factor in this controversy. Nonetheless this short was approved for distribution with some minor changes. Some of the animators for this short later corroborated this account. It is possible that Freleng made this for an African American audience. Phil Monroe later recalled "the only place they'd play that film was down in the Negro section"The problematic parts of this short are the then common stereotypes of African Americans, such as dice and watermelon references. Those felt too arbitrary. The caricature of Stepin Fetchit is cringe worthy to watch, although in this short he represents an old fashioned way of getting people to repent that doesn't work anymore. The redeeming part is Cab Calloway's swinging rendition of Swing For Sale, which also features Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller. I've wondered who performs their voices, because the impressions are very spot on.This is a short with a lot to enjoy, but its no surprise that the cliché stereotypes have kept it out of official circulation.

Tad Pole . . . about Looney Tunes director Friz Freleng's Profile-in-Courage-worthy response to Thomas Alva Edison's 1905 offering, THE WATERMELON PATCH, which had shocked Friz when it was screened by his racist third grade teacher. (If you do not want to trust my account of Edison Manufacturing Co.'s PATCH, it is readily available to see for yourself in its 10 minute, 42 second original entirety on YouTube; PATCH is so egregious in its suggestion of a "Final Solution" for American Blacks that President Obama PERMANENTLY banned Edison's light bulbs under a guilt-by-association clause which even Leader Trump does not dare to reverse.) PATCH opens with eight Black men crawling in a field to filch melons until chased toward their rural community center by a pair of White Skeletons; the scene then shifts to that cabin, in which other Blacks are gyrating with NO sense of rhythm, including the two Gay Dudes Twerking, and the musician strumming a Racist Banjo. When the melon thieves arrive, one of them "serves" this treat by dropping it to shatter on the floor, whereupon there's a lingering Edison group shot with 16 Blacks of all ages posed in rows as they sloppily slurp up the melon pieces. Just then five Whites--including former KKK Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd--run up to the cabin, nailing all exits closed and blocking the chimney, so that these Black men, women an children will be asphyxiated (no doubt inspiring Hitler's initial plan to off all the Jews by driving them around in the back of trucks into which the exhaust was vented; however, this diverted too much gasoline from Adolf's Blitzkrieg, causing Der Fuhrer to go to Plan Xyklon-B).CLEAN PASTURES, on the other hand, celebrates the Black Culture of the 1930s by portraying an Urban Population with a good command of Jazz, Rhythm, and sophisticated musical instruments such as the trumpets and pianos favored by Beethoven rather than the Racist Banjo popularized by Southern Crackers such as that plagiarist Stephen Foster. Know-Nothings have been ragging on Mr. Freleng for decades, just because the Racist Ted Turner and his infamous spouse Hanoi Jane (the deplorable pair behind the Atlanta "Braves" Tomahawk-Chopping Politically Incorrect Fad) got smashed on six pitchers of mint juleps on their Verandah one night and randomly Red-Lined CLEAN PASTURES and several other of Friz's film offerings. But now YOU know the rest of the story (and hopefully will make the Real Racists pay by putting any future payments of "Edison Bills" into escrow until a Judicial Referee settles the question of Reparations on which the Edison miscreants are trying to block payment).

tavm Just watched this, the third (in chronological order) of the "Censored 11" Warner Bros. cartoons that rarely get TV exposure anymore (unless issued on a bargain basement DVDs or VHSs of public domain stuff). In this one, Pair-O-Dice (Paradise, get it?) is low in attendance since all its potential customers are in Harlem living it up. It's not until the Stepin Fetchit-assistant angel sees one man tap dancin' and another singing like Al Jolson that he gets the idea to gather a musical group consisting of Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, and Louis Armstrong to entice a crowd. Boy, do they ever! Even with the "No Vancancy" sign, the head angel even lets Satan in! The end. Despite the stereotypical big lips on all the African-Americans, this was another enjoyable musical animated short directed by the as always talented Friz Freling. It's possible that all the people I mentioned actually provided their voices here but if they didn't, they certainly sounded enough like them to convince me! So on that note, I highly recommend Clean Pastures for animation and jazz music buffs.

haildevilman This cartoon really deserves another chance. People call it racist because of the black stereotypes but did anyone else notice that heaven was being run by blacks? And there were no white people in heaven either. It's not really racist because the jazz musicians they characterized (Calloway, Waller, Gillespie, Lunceford) really did act and talk like that. The music was a show stopper. That shuffling black man in the beginning was just a bit of comedy. But racist? That's a tad harsh. Let's face it, Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fudd were hardly roll models for white people. The music was the main event here. Give this one another chance. Re-release it.