Death in cartoons.
 

I've been watching the original edited English dub of Dragon Ball Z and have been having a good laugh at the euphemism for death, saying that characters were "sent to another dimension." It is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I know you can't have too much death and destruction in cartoons for kids, but some of the lengths censors go to keep it from them are outlandish.

Thoughts?

I remember the X-Men animated series substituted the word "death" with "destroy"

This makes me think of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

"Did Jet just die? I don't know, it was really unclear."

It's a line from one of the last episodes of the series, where the characters go to a play about the series up to that point, and where said play does nothing but make fun of a lot of the criticism that the creators received.

It's pretty glorious.

"Eliminate them!" "Destroy them!"

Ha, in DBZ they could call it whatever they wanted and it'd still be ridiculous. Dying was basically just hanging out on another planet.

Dude, I totally love watching the original Ocean dub of DBZ's first season! So many memories...

My favorite bits were when Nappa blew up the "Cargo plane" [and it's cargo was PEOPLE!:lol:] and when the Saiyens crash landed in the middle of a busy city and somebody yelled out "Thank goodness it was a Sunday or those buildings would have had people in them!"

In order to truly enjoy the humor of TeamFourStar's DBZ Abridged, you have to be familiar with the original US edits.

Also, it's ironic that DBZ fans got into a big stink about all the "butchering" and "censoring" in the original dub, yet now the DBZ Kai series pretty much makes editing a priority and fans just keep buying the stuff again!

I dunna, I really like Team Four Star and this is my first time watching DragonBall through (I started with the original).

Has T4S do any "other dimension" jokes? I can't remember...

I don't remember, but can any dimension really be any better than the "Home For Infinite Losers"?

HFIL

:P

I remember being surprised as a kid when Morph died on the X-Men. It was revealed the next season that he got better, but still, it was a surprise to see a superhero die.

I had no knowledge of redshirts at the time. Seeing as he wore the generic X-Men uniform, it's no surprise now.

In the 1987 TMNT cartoon itself, the alien in the first "Eye Of Sarnoff" cartoon disappears in a puff of smoke.

In the 1960's Underdog cartoon, Underdog kills the Wicked Witch Of Pickayoon indirectly by breaking apart her magic broom, after which she shrinks and disappears, leaving just a few black scraps behind.

In a Tom and Jerry cartoon depicting revolutionary France, you see the top of a guillotine and its blade start to fall to signify an execution.

Thundercats 2011 have a high death toll, got a bit surprised about that

Kenny in South Park.

I remember that actually disturbing me as a little kid. Especially Jerry's young mouse nephew cheerfully saying "goodbye, pussycat" after watching it happen and continuing on his merry way with his stolen food. I guess it was how blase Jerry and the kid was about it. Especially since it was made clear in the episode that Tom would be executed for

I personally hate baby words for "death and dying." They always come out awkward and often sound dumb. Some eightes cartoons got away with saying the real words.

"Drink blazing eletric death toitles!"

Good stuff!

He was just sick.

Heck, in the 2K3 TMNT, they always substituted words for death. Like when Casey died in "Bad Day" and they said he'd been "wasted."

I remember in Sonic X a woman name Molly gets killed fighting, but in the 4kids dub they made her run away like a coward. Now that show is not a masterpiece in any language, but really? You take a brave character and make her run away?

I don't know what makes mentioning death in cartoons so evil? It's not like it is going to scar kids for the rest of their lives as long as they don't go into detail about how someone died?

Whenever a villain in a cartoon actually tells the hero they are going to kill them, I actually get happy because they used that word instead of "destroy." I always think back to the pilot episode of Darkwing Duck when the bad guys say die and dead multiple times!

Been watching Exosquad lately and am totally delighted that the studios never made the creators mask the horrors of war. People die left and right in every episode, sometimes even onscreen, and all sorts of horrible stuff goes on, like transports of human prisoners being sent into the sun. The other more adult cartoons from the early '90s, like Batman and X-Men, rarely were allowed to get away with death.

They could have it so long as they didn't show it!
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y16...btacensors.jpg

Star Blazers and Robotech managed to get aired with death scenes intact. (ironically, Robotech's Macross Saga has a higher body count than its original source material)

Transformers also had a death as well, if I recall correctly. "War Dawn", I think.

That very cartoon was the reason for my long-standing hatred for Tom and Jerry when I was a kid.

BTW, what is that picture in your signature from? The artwork looks very familiar, but I can't remember what it's from or who the artist is.

Kinda me too. I could never see Jerry as the harmless goodguy anymore. LONG LIVE SPEEDY GONZALES!!

Aw, come on, folks, "The Two Mouseketeers" is hilarious!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF4dW87c-K8#t=06m40s

The thing about Tom and Jerry cartoons is that no matter what happened to the characters in the end of any given episode, you knew they'd be right back to the cat-n-mouse game in the next episode. It's similar to some of the old Looney Tunes shorts where some major characters like Daffy occasionally died and went to hell. That's just how animation rolled back in the mid-twentieth century!

If it weren't for stuff like this, we'd have never gotten Itchy and Scratchy... :P

But South Park was very obviously not meant as kids' entertainment, despite its being animated and having child characters.

No, but the topic is death in cartoons, and South Park is still a cartoon although it's aimed at adults and not kids.

And I agree about Looney Tunes. Wile E. Coyote was always the target for death, but he always came back to try and catch the Road Runner. Beep! Beep!

I should have been specific. It was intended to discuss the censorship of death in children's cartoons....

Casper wasn't born a ghost... I don't think. :ohwell:

Duke died in G.I.Joe: The Movie. Don't remember exactly how they put it in words though.

And, Optimus Prime died in his movie.

If you wanna get fancy about it, with all the taboo-ness the Looney Tunes got away with, at least South Park was honest about what they represented.

My mistake then.

the whole Transformers movie was a slaughterfest to make way for the new toys. and it was awesome, in a scary way

A bunch of those leaf-people in TCats11 died. :P

saddest thundercats episode to date.


Batman Brave and the Bold had a lot of death as well, it was really well done, the flashback scene of the death of Mr. and Mrs. Wayne and the death of Animal Man.

and that Bat-Mite episode...

...erm, not really. I kind of wanted to stomp on that little french mouse after that. My feelings on this episoide are still the same after all these years. Sometimes I actually felt more for Tom than Jerry, even though Tom was normally the one who started it.

I guess it is a weord double standard because Bugs Bunny coulkd be a bully at times even when the other started it and I was always fine with it. In fact when ever Bugs go up against that turtle I would get made because Bugs came out the loser in those cartoons, and some how became a dumbass on the same level of Elmer Fudd. WTF? To me that just wasn't right, Bug's should always be on top. And yet I didn't mind when one of his normal adversaries got one over him. Like the short where Elmer Fudd torments Bug's with a paint brush! That was genuanly amusing.

There are rules when it comes to Bugs. He wins when going against dimwits but his overconfidence gets the best of him when going up against characters like Cecil. I forgot where I read that, though.

Big Cufflink Caper
 

I noticed someone wonder if we didn't see off-screen human death caused by action in the "Big Cufflink Caper" 1987 TMNT episode inside the candy factory. Actually, Michelangelo first saves April and Irma from being dipped in that hot candy, then Leonardo kicks down the gangsters in the vat. It seemed that if April and Irma would fall down there, dying.

Tom could be pretty creepy too!


Eh, it probably just depended on the animation director and the era.

Looney Tunes characters certainly underwent character evolution over time.

Tex Avery directed the first "Tortoise and the Hair" inspired Bugs cartoon and he portrayed Bugs into an almost Daffy Duck-like character. In 1941, Bugs still sported his old animation design seen in earlier shorts, which often had him acting far less cool and suave as the world would come to know him in time. The Tortoise was one of the few characters (like the Gremlin) to really get under Bugs's skin. Bob Clampett made a sequel two years later with a redesigned Bugs model who was still bitter about his defeat.

Daffy Duck himself started out as a hyper-active character who gradually grew into the cynical, jealous deviant under Chuck Jones. I think John K. really resents Jones for that too. Jones also perfected the notion of Bugs as the all-wise character who almost never got frustrated or outwitted.

Transformers Prime has had some deaths, mostly the stock Decepticons, but Cliffjumper was a major one.

Was there ever a Disney animated feature that didn't have an implied death of the antagonist?

*tries to think off the top of her head*

Nope, I've got nothing.

And don't forget the deaths of Bambi's mother and Mufasa. Those were some emotional moments.