The Warner Brothers "Censored 11" and public domain....

I SHOULD know this, but I have NEVER been good with figuring out public domain issues.

The W.B. "Censored 11" are a group of 11 cartoons that haven't been in circulation since the late 60's. Depending on your point of view, some/most/all contained some form of racial stereotyping that just will not fly today. I'm not here to argue about that, so let's not get sidetracked here.

What I want to know is why I can actually buy some of these cartoons on those $1 DVD's that you see in such places like Wal-Mart. I only learned about the "11" after buying one of these discs, watching one of them, and saying to myself "Geez! THIS is a little over the top!!!!". After a quick IMDB.com search on the title, my mind was enlightened to the whole "group".

If these are "pulled" from circulation, then how do these compaines get away with selling them on these DVD's?

 

Is "Scrub Me Mama With A Boogie Beat" one of the 11?

 

"All This and Rabbit Stew"-Avery/1941
"Angel Puss"-Jones/1944
"Clean Pastures"-Freleng/1937
"Coal Black & De Sebben Dwarfs"-Clampett/1943
"Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears"-Freleng/1944
"Hittin' The Trail to Hallelujah Land"-1931
"The Isle Of Pingo Pongo"-Avery/1938
"Jungle Jitters"-Freleng/1938
"Sunday Go To Meetin' Time"-Freleng/1936
"Tin Pan Alley Cats"-Clampett/1943
"Uncle Tom's Bungalow"-Avery/1937

 

They're missing a few.

 

These films wouldn't be PD yet unless they didn't renew which is unlikely so I don't know how they are getting they out. Maybe one of our forum lawyers will chime in on this one.

 

Wow.

I'm willing to bet that with titles like (some of) these, the content of them would probably be enough to make an ACLU member's head explode or make them collapse into a puddle of whimpering, self-wetting humanity.

 

Scrub Me is a cartoon by the Walter Lantz studio.

The Censored 11 are Warner Bros cartoons... TC11 was an informal name given to eleven notorious WB toons that were cherry-picked to be removed from broadcast (late 60s? early 70s?)... in the last decade or so, many more titles have been filtered out of broadcast (sometimes on the heels of a complaint upon seeing an unscrutinized broadcast)... so the Censored 11 is really sort of an anachronistic nickname for deleted toons, though there really are 11 specific titles.

WB owns the rights to all their cartoons, and are in the process of serious restoration and distribution... it is speculated that TC11 will find their way to a special collectors-oriented DVD release some day... obviously, care will have to be taken in presentation... already in the Looney Tunes box sets there are a few toons with incidental scenes that are otherwise removed from broadcast... they are doing this deliberately as a matter of film preservation, and probably testing the waters for eventual release of the more controversial TC11.

As far as the $1 DVDs you see in the store, that's simple theft of titles that are maybe thought to be PD, but really aren't... there are a lot of these out there, with titles from other studios beyond WB... many collectors of film prints out there.

 

Here's a list of Warner Brother's cartoons that are in the public domain: http://www.geocities.com/the_daffy_doc/pdlooney.html

Apparently a handful of cartoons from 1942-1943 were never copyrighted in the first place. A bunch of black and white cartoons weren't renewed at the time they should have been while UA controlled them in the 1960's. All This and Rabbit Stew is one of the Censored 11 that occasionally shows up on PD sets - most of the Censored 11 are still under copyright. Having seen all of those cartoons, the bulk of the not available ones are so-so/not very funny. Coal Black, however, is a really great cartoon with unfortunate stereotyped caricatures preventing it from being shown these days.

I've emailed Jerry Beck about the Warner cartoons and he mentioned that they're all being restored regardless of content - how/if/when they are put back into circulation remains to be seen. As mentioned above, some cartoons with short sequences of non-PC action have been included in the Golden Collection sets.

 

Does the sale of the pre-1948 cartoons to Associated Artists Productions (a.a.p.) have anything to do with the sketchy rights? I remember growing up and watching tons of a.a.p. labeled WB & Popeye cartoons on WPIX in NYC.

 

That might be where the public domain material came from - the copyrights for the black and white stuff would have been in need of renewal during the late 60's when UA controlled the pre 1948 Warner cartoons. Here's some information about AAP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_Artists_Productions

 

I imagine your face looked a little like your avatar when you watched that cartoon!

 

No - they weren't part of the Censored 11 group which consists mainly of cartoons with black characters. The WW2 cartoons that dealt with Japan and German caricatures quietly disappeared around the same time. The Pvt. SNAFU and Mr. Hook cartoons made for the government during WW2 are all in the public domain - those weren't aired on tv or were part of the AAP/Sunset Films purchase of the pre '48 cartoons, but there was plenty of racial stereotyping of Japanese and German characters (and grown-up stuff like partial nudity).

 

While it may apply and/or may NOT apply in this case, answer me this, forum lawyers:

How is it that rights can be gotten back AFTER something has gone into public domain? I seem to remember reading that this is why you don't see "It's a Wonderful Life" running every 5 minutes like you used to a few years back.

How can "Public Domain" become copyrighted again? Isn't that sort of hypocritical?

 

That is responsible on all fronts and highly commendable of Warners. They certainly deserve respect for their efforts. Way to go!

 

Totally agreed....no argument here.....I'm just wondering what kind of "legal stuff" is needed to snag something back from the dreaded realm of P.D. .

 

Indeed, that is VERY good news.

Hopefully other studios are following that lead, even if they are keeping it hush-hush. I dare to dream of a nice 35MM restored safety copy of "Song Of The South" sitting in a vault somewhere.