Taking the Scissors to Tex

Some kids who watched Warner Bros. cartoons in the black-and-white TV days saw them over and over so many times, they had them memorised.

That’s why I was very surprised when I read Joe Adamson’s wonderful book “Tex Avery, King of Cartoons” that there was a gag in Cross-Country Detours where the narrator announces “Here is a frog croaking.” The frog then kills himself.



Tex and writer Rich Hogan add a quick follow-up gag.



What was surprising was I had never seen this gag in all the years I had watched the cartoon. The local station cut it.

Remember, this is before ridiculous network edicts about editing out gun violence. This is the only example I can think of where the local station chopped something out of a cartoon.

Perhaps kids had bigger connections to frogs back then. How many old comedy shows or short films do boys have frogs? In my case, there was a small swamp behind the house across the street. We could catch tadpoles. You could hear the frogs at night. 50 years later, the area is filled in and is a condo development. The land is too valuable to be a swamp.

Johnny Johnsen’s panorama backgrounds are a highlight of this short, along with the lizard stripping scene (which our local station aired).