The Isle of Pingo Pongo

From blackwiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Osle-pingo-pongo-lobby600.jpg

The Isle of Pingo Pongo is a Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Tex Avery back in 1938. Warner Brothers released the film on May 28, 1938. This cartoon is the sixth in the Censored Eleven, a list of eleven cartoons that United Artist banned and withheld from syndication in 1968 due to the use of racial stereotypes in the cartoons that were deemed too offensive for society.

Plot

A cruise ship departs from New York for the island of Pingo-Pongo, which is likely in the South Seas. To reach the isolated island, the ship sails past the Statue of Liberty, who serves as a traffic officer, as well as the "Canary Islands" and "Sandwich Islands." The bulk of the tenants are tall, black, and have huge feet and lips. They begin with drums and then turn into a jazz beat, which is still represented as a "primitive savage rhythm." [1] This short doesn't really have a storyline, with half of the cartoon just showcasing the "primitive" action of the inhabitants of Pingo Pongo Island, all of whom are shown as black and with huge wide lips.

Pingo pongo.png

The Controversy

The cartoon's imagery was similar to other syndicated fare that had originally run in theaters until Associated Artists Productions and then United Artists took it to television via syndication in the late 1950s. By 1968, however, Europe had begun to decolonize Africa, and sight gags regarding dark-skinned figures' lip sizes and indigenous people's "primitive" attitudes pointed at the colonization from which the continent had begun to break free[2]. As a result, this kind of joke is no longer acceptable in contemporary culture.

External Link

Watch The Isle of Pingo Pongo at Dailymotion
The Isle of Pingo Pongo at IMDb

References

  1. Looneytunes Fandom retrieved December 18, 2020
  2. Cartoon Research retrieved December 18, 2020