So Where Is Daffy Duck's NAACP Image Award?

Tim Cavanaugh | March 2, 2006

Reader Omar Haque sends word that Iranian TV has finally blown the lid off the Jewish plot behind Tom & Jerry. Middle East Media Research Institute has the video. "If you study European history, you will see who was the main power in hoarding money and wealth, in the 19th century," says Professor Hasan Bolkhari (whose affiliation I haven't been able to find). "In most cases, it is the Jews. Perhaps that was one of the reasons which caused Hitler to begin the antisemitic trend, and then the extensive propaganda about the crematoria began... Some of this is true. We do not deny all of it... Watch Schindler's List. Every Jew was forced to wear a yellow star on his clothing. The Jews were degraded and termed 'dirty mice.' Tom and Jerry was made in order to change the Europeans' perception of mice. One of the terms used was 'dirty mice.'"

Haque notes: "It's mindblowing that the only occasion in which an Arab or Persian academic or pundit can acknowledge the reality of the holocaust is within the context of putting forward yet another Zionist conspiracy." Personally, I'm just glad we finally have somebody we can blame for Tom & Jerry. Even as a kid I hated the simpering petulance of the cat and the mouse's smug preciousness—and I hated them more when I realized they were responsible for Hanna-Barbera's vast empire of crap. (Yes, I realize Hanna and Barbera's legacy is mixed and they kept a lot of people working when the studios closed their animation shops; that doesn't mean I have to like it.) Only foreigners like Tom & Jerry, because there's no dialogue—something Hollywood might consider when calculating why its busy, wordy products grab a shrinking share of global audiences.

I wish I could say this is another case where MEMRI is cherry-picking obscure Middle Eastern sources for outrageousness; unfortunately, Bolkhari (who has a surprisingly affable style) seems to have a real credential. (Here he is urging open discussion of drug use and prostitution.) But the schmuck claims Tom & Jerry was a product of the "Jewish Walt Disney Company" rather than its actual studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer: He blames one goy when he could have pinned it on two Jews. The weird part of Bolkhari's anti-Semitic theory is that I'd always assumed Bill Hanna was an Arab-American, but he's not in Casey Kasem's hall of fame.

Is there anything to this Jewish mouse business? Hillel Halkin seems to think so.

Are elephants really afraid of mice?

Richard Linklater's theory that the Smurfs are pro-Krishna propaganda.

Krishna inspires George Harrison to plagiarize the Chiffons.

Zombie Hare Krishna from Dawn of the Dead.

Andy Kaufman (Jew) lip-syncs the Mighty Mouse theme.

Animated cartoons are just pogroms by another name.

Does this mean somebody can put a fatwa on Simon and Garfunkel?

Muhammad cuts off his sleeve to avoid waking a cat.

But was that really a cat sleeping on his sleeve?

Comments

|3.2.06 @ 4:36AM|#

Perhaps that was one of the reasons which caused Hitler to begin the antisemitic trend

Oh, he started that whole antisemitism thing? But I thought...oh, well nevermind

Warren|3.2.06 @ 4:51AM|#

Interesting theory. I agree with Tim's assessment of Hanna-Barbera.

Now surely there must be some connection between the, decidedly unmixed all-crap, world of Sid and Marty Krofft (well, maybe they get a pass for Land of the Lost) and Mao Zedong.

|3.2.06 @ 7:47AM|#

I thought that Art Garfunkel already had a fatwa against him. You don't see him around, do you?

|3.2.06 @ 8:06AM|#

Somebody tell Abert Brooks.

|3.2.06 @ 8:18AM|#

Perhaps that was one of the reasons which caused Hitler to begin the antisemitic trend, and then the extensive propaganda about the crematoria began

Is it just me, or are a few relevant steps left out of this analysis?

|3.2.06 @ 8:40AM|#

I'm glad that I was spared the horror of the "duck and cover" routine in the 60s, but I'll posit that you kids are lucky you were spared the horror of 70s era cartoons.

They sucked. They totally sucked. The animation was abysmal. We had to wait until SATURDAY morning to watch them. There was no other time. And guess what? TOM AND JERRY WERE FRIENDS!! They just walked around together with those stupid smiles plastered on their faces, and they giggled a lot. That is all I remember.

There should be class action lawsuits against Hanna-Barbara. They robbed us of our childhood. Their crimes against the cartoon medium are unparalleled.

I will say, though, there is some redemption. That 70s re-cycled stuff on Cartoon Networks "Adult Swim" is fucking hilarious.

|3.2.06 @ 9:17AM|#

TOM AND JERRY WERE FRIENDS!! They just walked around together with those stupid smiles plastered on their faces, and they giggled a lot.

Drugs are bad, mmm'kay?

Harvey Birdman, Attorney at La|3.2.06 @ 9:30AM|#

There should be class action lawsuits against Hanna-Barbara. They robbed us of our childhood. Their crimes against the cartoon medium are unparalleled.

I'll take the case!

|3.2.06 @ 9:50AM|#

Dirty mice? Is Bolkhari thinking of the Nazi propaganda film that compared Jews to rats? Or is he thinking of Maus, the excellent graphic novel about the holocaust? Or is he just an idiot? If he believes Jerry was an exercise in pro-mouse revisionism, I'd have to think the latter.

Tim, you might ask Peter Bagge if he remembers an episode of one of R. Crumb's 80's comics (I forget the name, I think it was Weirdo) that had a panel of a nearly pornographic Flintstones parody in it. Funniest thing I'd ever seen from HB studios, and it sure wasn't authorized.

Warren, They get no pass for Land of the Lost. When I saw it recently, I was amazed it never got the MST 3k treatment. Ed Wood could have done better effects. Regarding your theory, I have no doubt Sid & Marty "works" were the impetus for the Cultural Revolution. On the plus side. Mr. Show once did a Krofft parody called "The Altered State of Drugachusetts" which somewhat made up for the pain.

|3.2.06 @ 9:58AM|#

70s animation wasn't all bad, it gave us Thundarr the Barbarian!

|3.2.06 @ 10:15AM|#

I have a collection of old World War Two propaganda cartoons (quite hallucinatory, watching Bugs and Daffy kick Hitler's ass), though I haven't watched them in awhile. But I seem to recall a 1940s Tom and Jerry cartoon, which won an Academy Award, portraying Tom as a German cat and Jerry as an American or British mouse. Tom gassed Jerry's mouse hole, but Jerry survived by putting a clothespin on his nose.

However, I don't think that had anything to do with Auschwitz gas chambers.

|3.2.06 @ 10:16AM|#

And don't forget that HR Puffnstuff was a plot to turn kids on to pot, man.

|3.2.06 @ 10:24AM|#

And don't forget that HR Puffnstuff was a plot to turn kids on to pot, man.

The Kroffts also had a show called Lidsville. Apparently, lids were everywhere in town, so HR must have had enough stuff to puff.

|3.2.06 @ 10:43AM|#

The Wacky Races and the Laff-a-Lympics were great cartoons.

Pity that the wrong guys *ALWAYS* won.

|3.2.06 @ 10:46AM|#

Hold up a second. I clicked on the link for the "Arab American Hall of Fame" and found the following there:

"Activists
Among America�s activists, can you think of two people who have saved more lives than America�s foremost consumer advocate and Green party presidential candidate Ralph Nader and the founder of MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) Candy Lightner. MADD is the largest crime victims� assistance organization in the world, with more than 3 million members and supporters. "

Ralph Nader and Candy Lightner?

They think this makes Arab Americans look good? WTF?!

|3.2.06 @ 11:02AM|#

It's especially funny given that Germans were referred to as "Jerry" during the war by the Allies.

In Pufnstuff-related news, Jack Wild just died.

|3.2.06 @ 11:07AM|#

Who put the fatwa on Simson Garfinkel?

|3.2.06 @ 11:22AM|#

The government HAS issued a fatwa on Art Garfunkel. They keep arresting him for smoking pot.

As for pornographic Flintstone drawings: animators have been making porno drawings and cartoons of the characters they're paid to work on going all the way back to Gertie the Dinosaur days (the 'net is full of more recent examples, for anyone who cares to see incest between Bart and Marge Simpson). In fact, Windsor McKay's friends once made him a very funny porno cartoon as a birthday present, about some guy who's 3 foot penis keeps getting him into scrapes. I wish my friends loved me that much!

|3.2.06 @ 11:24AM|#

Tom And Jerry were among the best of their era. They held a certain cache because every kid on the block agreed: they were the most vilolent, and most likely to warrant a negative reaction from the grown ups, than any other cartoon. We all understood thay were un-PC before anyone dreamt of the term PC. The only way they could be broadcast today in the same spirit as back then would be as parody, in Itchy and Scratchy.

Paramount cartoons ot the same era, on the other hand, were absolutely crap, in spite of the high production values.

It's too bad Hanna Barbera sunk so low in the 70s. There were a few highlights, like Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home, but they never regained that creativity that brought The Flintstones.

|3.2.06 @ 11:29AM|#

For the record, Tom and Jerry was my favorite cartoon all through childhood, and it's one of the few I loved back then that I still enjoy watching today.

|3.2.06 @ 11:35AM|#

I still adore the early Tom & Jerry cartoons; all that ridiculous violence, the off color sight gags, Tom's bizarre singing. Just the sound of Tom's screams of pain make me laugh.

As for the lack of dialouge, that helps the cartoons, to my mind, achieve a sort of timeless, classic quality. If they were full of jokes about Roosevelt and Wilkie it would be hard to "get" them, but, instead, Tom and Jerry is about conflict, which will always be with us, and sometimes Tom's (and rarely Jerry's) search for love and sex, something we can all identify with.

As an aside, I am sick of referential humor, shows in which joke after joke after joke is "Hey, look, this is just like what happened on 'The Prisoner!'" or "Hey, isn't that currently famous actor or politican dumb!" But Tom trying to seduce a girl and being humiliated, or trying to hit Jerry with an axe and instead chopping off his own tail, I will never tire of.

|3.2.06 @ 11:37AM|#

I'm glad to see Shecky and Brian24 leaped into the breach while I was typing.

|3.2.06 @ 11:56AM|#

As much as I enjoyed the Krishna Smurf diegesis in Slacker I prefer this exchange from Donnie Darko:

Sean Smith: We gotta find ourselves a Smurfette.

Ronald Fisher: Smurfette?

Sean Smith: Mm-hmmm.

Ronald Fisher: Not some, like, tight-ass Middlesex chick, you know? Like this cute little blonde that will get down and dirty with the guys. Like Smurfette does.

Donnie Darko: Smurfette doesn?t fuck.



Ronald Fisher: That?s bullshit. Smurfette fucks all the other smurfs. Why do you think Papa Smurf made her? Because all the other Smurfs were getting too horny.

Sean Smith: No, no, no, not Vanity. I heard he was a homosexual.

Ronald Fisher: Okay, well, you know what? Then she fucks them while Vanity watches Okay?

Sean Smith: What about Papa Smurf? He must get in on the action.

Ronald Fisher: Yeah, what he does, he films the gang-bang. Later on, he beats off to the tape.

Donnie Darko: First of all, Papa Smurf didn?t create Smurfette. Gargamel did. She was sent in as Gargamel?s evil spy with the intention of destroying the Smurf village. But the overwhelming goodness of the Smurf way of life transformed her. And as for the whole gang-bang scenario is just couldn?t happen. Smurfs are asexual. They don?t even have reproductive organs under those little white pants. That?s what?s so illogical, you know, about being a Smurf. What?s the point of living if you don?t have a dick?

|3.2.06 @ 11:57AM|#

Good thing nobody really reads anymore. Albert Camus' The Stranger is still on bookshelves.

|3.2.06 @ 11:58AM|#

Oops, sorry for the typos. It was a quick cut and paste.

|3.2.06 @ 12:15PM|#

That's kind of funny, because the time in my life when I watched the most Tom & Jerry was when I was in Iraq from April '04 - August '05. Let me explain: when someone is arrested by coalition troops, anything incriminating is confiscated with him for use as evidence. A lot of Iraqis have propaganda DVDs (beheadings, fiery anti-Western/Jewish/non-Muslim sermons, footage from the "glorious front" in Chechnya, etc.) so pretty much all of the DVDs are taken for review.

The funny thing is, among all those beheadings (and the weirdest porn I've ever seen), is a wealth of Tom & Jerry cartoons. I would say that at least half of the Iraqi fathers of young children who had a decent-sized DVD collection had at least a few Tom & Jerry cartoons in among the resto of it (which usually turned out to be bootlegged, untranslated Jackie Chan movies, incidentally).

The reason for the Tom & Jerry cartoons is obvious, I think: Hanna Barbera could distribute that cartoon anywhere inthe world because there is no dialogue, so there is no impediment to understanding.

Anyway, thought you'd enjoy the anecdote.

|3.2.06 @ 12:23PM|#

Arab American hall of fame...

I didn't know there had been four Arab-American Senators. I knew about Abourezk, I used to watch him hold court down at his wife's deli in Sioux Falls; I had no idea that Abdnor was Arab as well.

Two out of four of the Arab-Americans who have been elected to the Senate came from South Dakota. Who would have thought?

|3.2.06 @ 12:43PM|#

Let me explain: when someone is arrested by coalition troops, anything incriminating is confiscated with him for use as evidence. A lot of Iraqis have propaganda DVDs (beheadings, fiery anti-Western/Jewish/non-Muslim sermons, footage from the "glorious front" in Chechnya, etc.) so pretty much all of the DVDs are taken for review.

So are Iraqis not allowed to own DVDs the Americans don't approve of?

|3.2.06 @ 12:50PM|#

I knew that if they kept looking hard enough, they would find DVDs in Iraq.

|3.2.06 @ 1:10PM|#

goober: LOL!!!

|3.2.06 @ 1:36PM|#

Does Bert know about this? He and Ernie could take on the zionist mouse, no prob.

brian423|3.2.06 @ 3:47PM|#

Just wait till Professor Bolkhari sees The Ambiguously Gay Duo.

I mean, the other such duo besides Bert and Ernie.

|3.2.06 @ 5:07PM|#

It's especially funny given that Germans were referred to as "Jerry" during the war by the Allies.

Hmm. And British soldiers were nicknamed "Tommy."

Tom and Jerry ... I think there's material for a major liberal arts thesis in here.

The Steganographic Symbolism of "Tom and Jerry" as Archetypes of Violent Conflict Between the Overtly Antisemitic vs. Covertly Antisemitic Forms of Capitalist Patriarchy, 1938-1945. Something like that.