Friday 8 December 2017

Three Weeks For a Cow

Horace Horsecollar is taking Clarabelle Cow to a barn dance, featuring all kinds of public domain tunes, in the 1930 short The Shindig. His motorcycle (with a rag tied around the front tire because of a flat) barely gets him to the Cow residence.



There’s a funny gag when it turns out the door bell at Clarabelle’s place is actually her cowbell, and the rope pulling it is her tail. The Disney story people top it by having Clarabelle get caught by the camera reading Eleanor Glyn’s sex novel “Three Weeks,” and hiding it in embarrassment. Karl Cohen’s book “Forbidden Animation” quotes a New York Times report that the cartoon was banned in Ohio for that reason.



The rest of the cartoon is blah—dancing, cycle animation, the inevitable wiener dog and obese pig, several razzberries by an obxious kid (but no outhouse or spitoon jokes).

3 comments:

  1. Years later, Friz got around any potential bannings by featuring only part of a scandalous tome's title, "Amber" - for Forever Amber - in the Tweety & Sylvester short, "Home Tweet Home" (1949).

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  2. Cincinnati was infamous for that sort of prudishness. But we CAN see her udders! Well, the Hayes Office would eventually put a stop to that.

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  3. cheapness ruined those toons from the 50s on back !

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