Let’s travel back in time. When I was a kid, growing up on a farm in Oman (few people actually know this fact), I watched a lot of Tom and Jerry, old episode of the original Bugs Bunny, and not much Mickey Mouse. And Tom and Jerry made a lasting impression on me. I still watch these short animated masterpieces with the same enthusiasm as 15 years ago, only now I have an even greater appreciation for these pieces as art.
For one, there’s very little dialogue – which means the shows can be disseminated globally with very little revision (aside from censorship: funny story, an episode of Yogi Bear was edited in the Saudi Arabian version. A scene where the Beat’s wife throws water on him is deleted). And yet, these cartoons cannot be aired in their original states. And i’ll show you why.
Check this out: It’s by far one of my favorite animated pieces. Call the Cat Concerto, it shows Tom playing Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 and his antics with Jerry of course. The piece itself is wonderful in its own right, and it rightfully won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
Now, compare it with this. It’s Rhapsody Rabbit. Notice anything similar?
Sorry I couldn’t find a decent quality English version. But that’s a point that should be raised. There is dialogue in the Bugs Bunny toon (although it’s minimal) and none in the T&J version. As you’ve noticed both pieces use similar gags to play out the same musical piece, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. In fact, both were released in the same year and both groups have sued each other for plagiarism; until this very day the controversy has not been cleared up.
Somethings you might also notice. Bugs Bunny, in the very beginning, murders, in cold blood but with complete impunity, one of the audience members because he is coughing. I mean, you can’t get any more outrageous than that. There are more violent gags that I don’t need to point out that would be completely censored in today’s dull world of cartoons.
Something you might not notice: There are no cut scenes in The Cat Concerto while Rhapsody Rabbit is full of them. And at the end of each, I feel that the former held my attention more. I mean, even the use of an annoying mouse seemed forced in the Bugs Bunny version. In my opinion, Tom and Jerry take the cake on this one.
Then I found The Opry House. An early Mickey animation using the same music as these two more famous pieces. And this all brought me back to the sampling entry Jeff wrote a while ago.
Notice the tobacco Mickey spits out at around 0:49?
–Cover #24–
Batman#364
Yeah, but I still laugh the hardest at Bugs. Did you remember the overtly racist reference to black people in some episodes of Tom & Jerry? I think the character’s name was mammy. I liked watching the show, but hated the episodes she was in now that I look back on them and understand.
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