Cubby and the Code

“Pre-Code” does not mean “Pre-Code.”

The Motion Picture Production Code did not suddenly appear in 1934. There was a code in 1930, and other measures going back to the silent era. It’s just that enforcement was lax until 1934.

One wonders if a gag in The Last Mail, a 1933 Van Beuren cartoon, would have gotten past the Code if it were made a year later. It stars Cubby Bear as a mail deliverer on a sled pulled through the snow by squirrels. The film cuts to a scene of beavers building a snowman. Emotion lines indicate they see something in the distance and they run away. It turns out to be Cubby.



Cubby and his sleigh plough through the snowman.



Here’s where the Code comes in. The snowman comes to life and checks his privates. They’re gone!



The snowman runs into the distance, a standard Terry/Van Beuren scene-ender going back to the silent days.



Somehow, I don’t think the Code would go for a Cubby Castration™.

Mannie Davis is the director of this one.