This article particularly deals with content blacklisted from contemporary television for containing harmful, outdated racial stereotypes and/or imagery. This article is not censored, as to censor the article would be to pretend that these prejudices never existed. Please continue at your own risk. |
Tom Tom Tomcat is a 1953 Merrie Melodies animated short directed by I. Freleng.
Plot[]
Granny and Tweety are riding through the desert in their wagon to the tune of "Oh! Susanna", when they are ambushed by Indians, who bear remarkable resemblance to Sylvester. They are forced to hole up in a fort, where Granny begins to shoot them down while Tweety counts while singing "Ten Little Indians". On the tenth, one nearly takes Tweety, but Granny bonks him on the head with a mallet.
More attempts include an archer and a battering ram, both foiled. One archer almost drags Tweety out again. "Granny! Help! A Mohican got me!" Granny surprises him with a bomb instead. The cats' attempts continue like this, all of them backfiring or being foiled.
Finally, Granny and Tweety disguise themselves as a fellow Indian, and lead the cats into the powder house. When one asks for a match, they kindly oblige, and the powder house explodes, causing all the cats to fall. "Oh my goodness!" Tweety comments, "It's raining putty tats!"
Censorship[]
- In the syndicated version of Merrie Melodies: Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends, the part where an Indian cat drills a hole in the side of Tweety and Granny's fort shelter and preps to shoot them with a bow and arrow (only to get shot by a rifle and have his bottom half fall down like a loose pair of pants) was cut.[1]
- This cartoon has not aired on American television since the early 1990s due to heavy Native American stereotyping. While the Turner networks in the United States, such as Cartoon Network and Boomerang, do not currently air the cartoon (nor is it available on home media or streaming as of 2024), the Turner networks internationally have shown this cartoon uncut and uncensored.
Notes[]
- The scene where an American Indian cat uses a plunger to bring Tweety to him through a hole, only for Granny to put a bomb on it, causing the cat to be comically exploded, is reused animation from "Gift Wrapped" from the previous year.
- This cartoon was shown in theatres with South Sea Woman during its original release.
Gallery[]
References[]
External links[]
- "Tom Tom Tomcat" at the SFX Resource
| Tweety Cartoons | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1942 | A Tale of Two Kitties | |||
| 1944 | Birdy and the Beast | |||
| 1945 | A Gruesome Twosome | |||
| 1947 | Tweetie Pie | |||
| 1948 | I Taw a Putty Tat | |||
| 1949 | Bad Ol' Putty Tat | |||
| 1950 | Home, Tweet Home • All a Bir-r-r-d • Canary Row | |||
| 1951 | Putty Tat Trouble • Room and Bird • Tweety's S.O.S. • Tweet Tweet Tweety | |||
| 1952 | Gift Wrapped • Ain't She Tweet • A Bird in a Guilty Cage | |||
| 1953 | Snow Business • Fowl Weather • Tom Tom Tomcat • A Street Cat Named Sylvester • Catty Cornered | |||
| 1954 | Dog Pounded • Muzzle Tough • Satan's Waitin' | |||
| 1955 | Sandy Claws • Tweety's Circus • Red Riding Hoodwinked • Heir-Conditioned | |||
| 1956 | Tweet and Sour • Tree Cornered Tweety • Tugboat Granny | |||
| 1957 | Tweet Zoo • Tweety and the Beanstalk • Birds Anonymous • Greedy for Tweety | |||
| 1958 | A Pizza Tweety-Pie • A Bird in a Bonnet | |||
| 1959 | Trick or Tweet • Tweet and Lovely • Tweet Dreams | |||
| 1960 | Hyde and Go Tweet • Trip for Tat | |||
| 1961 | The Rebel Without Claws • The Last Hungry Cat | |||
| 1962 | The Jet Cage | |||
| 1964 | Hawaiian Aye Aye | |||
| 2011 | I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat | |||