Getting Crap Past the Radar - in G rated movies

[Malthus]

I loved the Great Mouse Detective when I was a kid.

At any rate, it was a different time back then.  People were less obsessed with protecting children from reality back then, and the 24-hour news cycle and the internet hadn't yet created the perpetual outrage machine.  It's also important to note that the Disney animated musicals weren't the juggernauts that they became after The Little Mermaid, and that Disney wasn't the slick megacorporation we're used to today.  The movie was considered a modest success making 20-odd million dollars, so expectations were lower.  And the movie was authorized and under production in a time when Disney was essentially still run by Disney's son-in-law.  The clean, polished corporate suits would spend the next decade eliminating that sort of thing from the company.

I think that a lot of children's movies have little jokes for the adults, but you'll probably never see another sequence like that in a new film.

Yeah, I was going to say Malthus' "large double take" didnt register at all back in the day.  One more indication this generation of kids are being raised in sterile enviornment.  They cant go out on their own, they cant play unless it has been prearranged by adults and they cant see anything that would trouble them (until they get to the privacy of their rooms and log onto the internet themselves....).

Don't agree - when the movie came out in 1986, I was already an adut; and though I didn't see it until now, I'd have found it just as hilarious then as now.

Also, kid's animation on TV can get downright bizzare these days (Adventure Time, anyone?). It is mostly the juxtaposition of Disney movie - with a stripping mouse - that creates the doubletake. Bugs Bunny did stuff like that all the time, but in Disney?

But that's the whole point.  Disney wasn't 'Disney' yet.  The sterile megacorp hadn't yet been constructed, and the culture war hadn't reached the point where people would fight and die over that scene.

I remember seeing that movie in the theatre as a boy, and not finding it troublesome or unusual.  It was a bad-guy bar, so why wouldn't there be slightly-clad women dancing around?  After all, Jabba's palace was three years earlier, so it's not like it was a surprise to a child of the 80s that evil places were full of dancing girls.

I don't think anyone is fighting and dying over this scene - I thought it was funny.

Basically, because it was all innuendo. The kids will not notice (or care). It's there, I thought, to give the parents a laugh. 

Also, Star Wars wasn't G rated. It was catering to a different group.

[CountDeMoney]

In Dumbo they get high on "soap".

General Stillwell loved that movie.

Black crows and "I seen a house fly, an' I seen a horse fly..."

Most blatant animated racism until Phantom Menace.

[derspiess]

I remember seeing that movie in the theatre as a boy, and not finding it troublesome or unusual.  It was a bad-guy bar, so why wouldn't there be slightly-clad women dancing around?  After all, Jabba's palace was three years earlier, so it's not like it was a surprise to a child of the 80s that evil places were full of dancing girls.

Yeah, that was a staple/cliche from the old movies that had been re-run on TV for decades. 

[derspiess]

Also, Star Wars wasn't G rated. It was catering to a different group.

By Return of the Jedi they were clearly targeting the younger group.

[CountDeMoney]

Ewok merchandising: PROFIT

[Malthus]

Also, Star Wars wasn't G rated. It was catering to a different group.

By Return of the Jedi they were clearly targeting the younger group.

Not as young as the audience for The Great Mouse Detective. That is really for kids to watch with their parents. Star Wars appealed to an older audience, and was intended to. It does not include innuendos intended to go over the head of the primary audience (kids) and appeal to the secondary audience (parents watching with their kids).

This is reflected in their ratings - The Mouse Detective is rated "G", while Star Wars is rated "PG".

Edit: hence a certain amount of fan annoyance with the inclusion of stuff like Ewoks. 'This isn't a kiddie movie goddamit, stop doing that shit'.

[celedhring]

In Dumbo they get high on "soap".

General Stillwell loved that movie.

Black crows and "I seen a house fly, an' I seen a horse fly..."

Most blatant animated racism until Phantom Menace.

Dunno...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_at9dOElQk

(also, a scene depicting children smoking)

[Monoriu]

I grow up watching anime.  Somehow the Japanese/HK censorship standards for kids are much more relaxed than western nations.  There is no gore or anything sexually explicit, of course.  But character deaths, lots of onscreen blood, genocide, torture, smoking, losing a limb or two, teens or pre-teens in...fancy outfits and showing their underboobs, characters giving long speechs about their racial superiority (in uniforms that are deliberately made to look like Nazi ones, no less) and everybody hailing them as geniuses, prostitution etc are all fair game. 

So I was quite surprised about the western standards.  I was speechless when I found that the shows that I used to watch as a kid were all heavily edited in the west to pretend that all the character deaths didn't happen. 

[Eddie Teach]

There is no gore <snip> But character deaths, lots of onscreen blood, genocide, torture,  losing a limb or two,  are all fair game. 

So in other words there is gore. 

[Neil]

I don't think anyone is fighting and dying over this scene - I thought it was funny.

Basically, because it was all innuendo. The kids will not notice (or care). It's there, I thought, to give the parents a laugh. 

Also, Star Wars wasn't G rated. It was catering to a different group.

Today people would go to war over that.  That's what the Outrage Machine has created.

And by Return of the Jedi, Star Wars had definitely become something that your kids would see.  I saw it in the theatre when I was four, and I wasn't outside the norm in that respect.

[derspiess]

Black crows and "I seen a house fly, an' I seen a horse fly..."

Most blatant animated racism until Phantom Menace.

So are your mammies in storage or have they taken up residence in your mom's kitchen?

[CountDeMoney]

So are your mammies in storage or have they taken up residence in your mom's kitchen?

You mean my collection of unique, handmade vintage period Americana?  Didn't make any movies with them, Mr. Irrelevant Point.

[Razgovory]

Disney movie "The Rescuers", has a photo of a topless chick in it for a split second.  Obviously I'm not going to post it, but you can look it up.

[Razgovory]

I loved that movie.  The villain was just so very very evil.

Voice by ... Vincent Price! 

I think it has a sound clip from one of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies in it as well.  I suppose that's where the main character gets his name as well.

[CountDeMoney]

Meh, it's all symptomatic of the peculiar US puritanism when it comes to movies, always has been, always will be.  Even these days.  Murder, violence and gore is OK, but titties and bad language?  ZOMG TEH CHILDREN

Shit, I was watching GoodFellas yesterday on AMC during the day.  They showed Tommy's execution in all its bullet-through-the-back-of-the-head glory, but consistently censored the word "shit".  So typical.