Hey, Cartoon, You Can’t Say That

History has recorded how there was a big flap over Rhett Butler’s final line in “Gone With the Wind” (1939). Yet Flip the Frog used the very same offending word in “Ragtime Romeo” released eight years earlier. Flip says it when he can’t get his sheet music to stay put as he prepares to serenades a girl (we’ve seen her in silhouette wearing a slip and taking off her stockings).



He finally uses a pin to keep the sheet music in place.



But it turns out he hasn’t pinned it to the bush. He’s pinned a dog hiding in the bush.



And there’s a girl dog in there with him. They were, uh, playing “Hide and Seek.” Yeah, that’s it.



It wasn’t the only time Flip damned things. He used the word in 1932’s “Room Runners.” It should be noted middleman Powers wasn’t originally part of the organisation which adhered to the Production Code. Motion Picture Daily reported on August 16, 1934:

First Outside Code Approval to Powers
First certificate of compliance with Production Code Administration standards issued to a producer not a member of the Hays association goes to P. A. Powers, as producer, and "Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp," an animated cartoon, as the picture.
The Hays office, at the same time, stressed the point that the approval, Certificate No. 154, was in conformity with the "association's purpose to afford all producers, whether or not members, the opportunity to use the facilities which the association has developed to help assure the highest standards of picture production."

The Production Code took care of cartoons like this. So the world ended up with frolicking kitties and doggies, cheerful birdies and squirrels and happy fairy tale elves until Tex Avery came along and said “I can’t do it, I tell you! I just can’t do it.”

As for Flip, Ub Iwerks went looking for a new star by 1933 after movie audiences collectively quoted Rhett Butler.