Missing Footage in Merrie Melodie, "Believe It or Else" (1939)

~ Greetings, Folks!

I hope I got the right cartoon in mind. I'll check my DVD collection and verify. Anyway, in Tex Avery's 1939 Merrie Melodie release, "Believe It or Else", the "Believe Or Not" franchise is parodied ruthlessly. One shot concerns a mother cat that has adopted a baby crocodile. It's feeding time when all the kittens and the alligator rush to momma's side for a meal. There is a really sharp cut of the the cat's tail(?) coming from behind and pinning the baby alligator by the tail right before it can bite down. Another quick cut shows the Momma cats reaction after delivering some sort of deleted punchline. This is a really old edit. I have never seen the restored scene on any print that I know of.

Hello there, I believe I can help you with this one. The short in question is actually Bob Clampett's "Baby Bottleneck" from 1946. The scene you are describing is from a series of mixups when the babies are delivered, such as a baby hippo to Scotty Dog (my favorite bit) and a baby alligator delivered to Mrs. Pig--which is what you are inquiring about.

You are indeed correct, there is something missing. However, you aren't going to find it because the censors got a hold of it before hand--this isn't just a simple edited out by a network due to violence or inappropriateness job. From what I've heard, the mother pig supposedly tells the baby alligator after holding it back "Aah aah aah, don't touch that dial!" much like a telephone operator. My guess has always been that this was one of those "bait and switch" moves in which a more questionable gag is thrown in so that the one originally in question is overlooked. So while the punchline is taken out, we still get the rather suggestive looking scene of the baby alligator attempting to dive in upon the mother pig to nurse.

~ Hi, Glowworm!
Thanks so much for straightening me out on this one! I knew I had the wrong cartoon as the scene I described sounds just like something Clampett would cook up. I appreciate you filling in the missing bits for me. "Aah aah aah, don't touch that dial!", was used extensively by advertisers during the Golden Age of Radio, so that sounds totally authentic. They sure messed up the editing pretty good on that scene. It's so jarring it's just confusing. I just looked at "Believe It or Else" again and it's pretty tame even for Tex Avery.
I genuflect to you and the impressive depth of you're cartoon knowledge.

Happy to help--in fact I do believe there is a commentators bit on that short on The Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2 DVD on the Sylvester and Tweety disc, which basically mentions this deleted footage through a Bob Clampett recording of him reflecting upon this scene.

To be honest, as a child, I never even noticed something was missing when I saw that short--it wasn't until I went upon the Censored Cartoon Page that I discovered just how much had been edited out of what I watched without ever realizing it. Of course, at some point, they used to edit out the beginning with the drunk stork--that I clearly noticed. Now that I know that something was missing, I can clearly see it--the mother pig was definitely going to say that to the alligator.

As for "Believe it or Else" there wasn't any thing that seemed to be deliberately cut beforehand. However, when shown on tv, they would always edit out the "berth of a baby" gag. Basically it was a really bad pun where a baby was seen on the fixed bed of a train car. Why was it edited out? The porters opening the doors to show us were black.

The way I understand it, the ol' "bait and switch" was used so the joke with Daffy would stay. While he's talking on the many phones, he says to Eddie Cantor, "You say you haven't got that boy yet? Well if at first you don't succeed. Hehehehe." Cantor, at the time, had daughters and he and his wife was trying for a son.