Bugs Bunny Banned?

Fri., May. 4, 2001 12:15 PM PDT by Emily Farache

Bugs Bunny inappropriate for children? What's up, doc?

Apparently, the wascally wabbit was a bit too wascally for the much-hyped "June Bugs" event on AOL Time Warner's Cartoon Network, with network brass deciding that some old Looney Tunes 'toons had to go.

Take for instance, the "All This and Rabbit Stew" short in which Bugs distracts a black rabbit-hunter by rattling a pair of dice. Or "Any Bonds Today?" in which he appears in blackface. Then there's "Frigid Hare," where Bugs calls an ungainly, bucktoothed Eskimo a "big baboon."

All in all, 12 sensitive cartoons, including one with the wisecracking, carrot-chomping Bugs parodying a black-faced Al Jolson, are being yanked from the Bugs Bunny retrospective, which was designed to hike up ratings in June, when kids across the country start summer vacation. (AOL Time Warner has been hyping its classic animation recently--just this week, the company launched LooneyTunes.com, the first Website devoted to Bugs and pals.)

The Cartoon Network initially planned on airing the racially charged episodes late at night with the following disclaimer: "Cartoon Network does not endorse the use of racial slurs. These vintage cartoons are presented as representative of the time in which they were created and are presented for their historical value."

Unflattering depictions of blacks, American Indians, Japanese and Germans were commonplace in early Looney Tunes 'toons. In a 1941's Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt, Bugs outsmarts a bumbling Indian; later that decade he sells tickets to "Uncle Tom's Cabinet," a spoof of Harriet Beecher Stowe's antislavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.

"We wanted to please the animation community," Betty Cohen, Cartoon Network's president, tells the Wall Street Journal.

But Daddy Warner Bros., which owns Bugs, told the Cartoon Network it didn't want the 12 disturbing cartoons included.

Torn between a retrospective true to history and a potential onslaught of complaints, the Cartoon Network decided to pull the dozen shorts. Cohen tells the Journal she acted after concluding an audience could well be offended by the stereotypes, even with a disclaimer.

"I don't like sweeping things under the rug," she said. "I wanted to honor the intense interest that animation fans have for us, but I can't deny we're a mass medium."

But that doesn't mean the un-P.C. 'toons will never be shown on the cable channel. Nope, the Cartoon Network is planning a separate program about Bugs Bunny cartoons made during World War II, unflattering portrayals and all.