The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour

This is the place where most people of my generation were introduced to the world of Warner Brothers' Looney Tunes. Every Saturday morning, we plopped down in front of the tv and waited for the curtain to rise and for the characters to parade out. This was before the network started censoring for time and for violence. Daffy still got shot in the face. Sylvester had anvils dropped on him. Wile E. Coyote fell off cliffs and was blown up by dynamite. Bill Watterson summed it up best in "Calvin and Hobbes," "This is what entertainment's all about...idiots, explosives and falling anvils!"

This was the place to see Duck Dodgers battle Marvin the Martian, see the great French lover attempt to woo a painted cat, catch a tweety bird wallop a lisping cat,observe the fastest mouse in all Mexico, and learn to never buy anything from a company named Acme.

Years later, when Saturday morning was a day to sleep in, not a ritual to be observed (starting with a test pattern, and ending when American Bandstand came on); I caught the updated version of this show. The cartoons had been edited to the point that the humor was lost. The timing of the jokes was destroyed. Political correctness caused some characters to disappear. Even now, you won't see Speedy Gonzales on the Cartoon Network; and, although Daffy does get shot when it's duck season, he doesn't shoot himself in the head to sell the script for the Scalet Pumpernickle. Speaking as someone who devoured these cartoons and others as violent, I never once imitated anything I saw on the screen. The fact that I was watching a talking rabbit was enough to show me that this wasn't real. Anyway, it's been my experience that kids are always smarter than network executives and censors.

I bought all the tapes I could find of these cartoons when they were on video; now Warner is finally going to release dvd compilations. Here's hoping that the cartoons will be intact, the way I remember them. Now, "Overture/Curtain! Lights!/This is it/The night of nights...."