Cartoon Cancel Culture. Who Is Next?
What Will Our Woke Masters Do With These Once-Beloved Cartoon Characters?
These are perilous times. At least for those of us of a certain age.
You know, the ones who grew up with Saturday morning cartoons. Baby Boomers, mostly, but not exclusively. Our parents, looking forward to sleeping in on a Saturday morning, would plop us in front of our smallish (by today’s standards) often black and white television to feast on cartoons for three or four hours. During the week, before school, it was Captain Kangaroo, the Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers Neighborhood of its day.
Several of the characters we grew up watching and being entertained by are certainly in the sights of our Maoist woke masters. While most of the following characters and others have long been retired, you can still find some of their cartoons on YouTube and maybe elsewhere. You certainly won’t find them today on the Cartoon Network. If you’re willing to cancel certain Dr. Seuss books and characters for their “depictions,” will many of these childhood favorites be far behind?
Speedy Gonzalez (Academy Award Winner!)
From Wikipedia’s page about this 1950’s cultural icon:
Speedy's first appearance was in 1953's Cat-Tails for Two though he appeared largely in name (and super speed) only.[3] It would be two years before Friz Freleng and layout artist Hawley Pratt redesigned the character into his modern incarnation for the 1955 Freleng short Speedy Gonzales. The cartoon features Sylvester the Cat guarding a cheese factory at the international border between United States and Mexico from starving Mexican mice. The mice call in the plucky, excessively energetic Speedy (voiced by Mel Blanc) to save them. Amid cries of "¡Ándale! ¡Ándale! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba! ¡Epa! ¡Epa! ¡Epa! Yeehaw!" (Spanish for "Go on! Go on! Up! Up!", although "Ándale arriba" may have been intended as meaning "hurry up"), Sylvester soon gets his comeuppance. The cartoon won the 1955 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons).
Speedy, clearly a champion of the oppressed in Mexico, was a little before my time. But I remember the cartoons and enjoyed them as a young child growing up in Oklahoma during the 1960’s. I’m married to a wonderful woman whose family comes from Mexico and Spain (not because of the cartoon), so there’s that.
Pepe LePew
This cartoon character has to be in big trouble. Pepe was a romantically persistent male skunk with an implausibly phony French accent, quite likely offensive to Fracophiles everywhere. He’s accused of perpetuating rape culture, according to some. Somehow, I missed the lesson from Pepe that “no didn’t mean no.” I don’t remember a cartoon where Pepe ever “got the girl.” Still, Pepe is on life support in today’s woke culture. Which means . . . adieu. And he’s a skunk. No one likes skunks. Maybe Pepe’s creators were sending a message? Still, the cultural guillotine surely awaits.
Foghorn Leghorn
Foghorn probably survives the wokesters, since he tends to reinforce the quintessential southern “good ‘ole boy stereotypes,” which of course signals racism to the woke. Therefore, he’s a useful foil; some of his cartoons may be reminiscent of plantations and slavery to some. But there’s a website dedicated to some of Foghorn’s quotes and sayings, such as this one: “Gal reminds me of the highway between Forth Worth and Dallas – no curves.” Misogyny! Warnings and apologies surely beckon, if not cancellation.
Foghorn’s moniker has sometimes been applied to a former US Senator, the late US Senator Ernest Hollings, attributable to his speaking style on the Senate floor with his deep, low-country accent. Hollings was the last Democrat to serve in the Senate from South Carolina. He retired in 2005 after a long and distinguished career in state politics.
Fred Flinstone
This of course stereotypes the nuclear family of the day. Wilma was the stay-at-home mom to take care of Pebbles. But here’s the thing that may save Fred and family among wokesters, courtesy of Wikipedia:
Fred lives in the fictional prehistoric town of Bedrock, a world where dinosaurs coexist with modernized cavepeople and the cavepeople enjoy "primitive" versions of modern conveniences such as telephones, automobiles, and washing machines. Fred's trademark catchphrase yell is "yabba dabba doo!", a phrase that was originally his club's cheer, and later adopted as part of the theme song from the third season on and used in the 1994 live-action Flintstones movie.
Coexist! Diversity! Inclusion! And his car is clearly Green New Deal compliant! Well, mostly. You won’t find the Flinstones on this list. For now.
Yogi Bear
What saves Yogi are two things. First, he’s the icon for a series of Recreational Vehicle parks around the US and Canada (Camp Jellystone), and more importantly, he’s described as an “anthropomorphic funny animal.” He does wear a tie, so he’s definitely not fashionable by today’s pandemic standards. Again, like most of the previous characters, he’s a cisgender male. That’s probably a negative in today’s culture.
Again, from Wikipedia:
Like many Hanna-Barbera characters, Yogi's personality and mannerisms were based on a popular celebrity of the time. Art Carney's Ed Norton character on The Honeymooners was said to be Yogi's inspiration;[25][26] his voice mannerisms broadly mimic Carney as Norton.[27] Carney, in turn, received influence from the Borscht Belt and comedians of vaudeville.[26]
Yogi's name was similar to that of contemporary baseball star Yogi Berra, who was known for his amusing quotes, such as "half the lies they tell about me aren't true." Berra sued Hanna-Barbera for defamation, but their management claimed that the similarity of the names was just a coincidence. Berra withdrew his suit, but the defense was considered implausible.[28] At the time Yogi Bear first hit TV screens, Yogi Berra was a household name.[29]
The plot of most of Yogi's cartoons centered on his antics in the fictional Jellystone Park, a variant of the real Yellowstone National Park. Yogi, accompanied by his constant companion Boo-Boo Bear, would often try to steal picnic baskets from campers in the park, much to the displeasure of Park Ranger Smith.[30] Yogi's girlfriend, Cindy Bear, sometimes appeared and usually disapproved of Yogi's antics.
Taking picnic baskets from park visitors. A modern-day Robin Hood, that Yogi.
There are no doubt other cartoons and cultural icons from the 50’s, 60’s, and maybe even the 70’s (Johnny Quest, whose protagonist, Race Bannon, resembles Mike Pence? Pop-Eye the Sailor? Dudley Do-right?) that may fall under today’s woke microscopes. Some, like Rocky and Bullwinkle, have aged well given that a Nazi-like leader and Russian-sounding antagonists are featured. We shall see, but how they handle these will tell us a lot. Perhaps more than we want to know. Having breached the cartoon world with Dr. Seuss, other historical characters are sure to follow.