This post has been a long time coming—I’ve been holding onto this little clip for six years, waiting for the right time to unleash it’s majesty.
I don’t even need to set up what you’re about to see, or explain why it needs to be shared with the world, or meditate on how lucky I was to have a tape in the VCR when it came on at my college apartment. All I’ll say is that even though I’m stretching the definition of “cartoon” here, you’re not going to mind a whole helluva lot. And whatever you do, do not miss the jaw-dropping ending to this birthday gift of a video I have so carefully wrapped for you and placed at your feet.
Really, I don’t know what to say after that. Except maybe, well, “BLAAAAACCCCCCCCCCKKK!!!”
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Good Christ. Did they really have to take it to that extra level of ugly by dressing the puppets in uber-ethnic stereotype garbs? I mean when was the last time a “yellow” person dressed like the puppets in this do (outside of a bad kung fu movie)?
Comment by Gary — January 26, 2009 @ 10:40 am
That’s just playing on the stereotype that all black people have gray skin and wear Hawaiian shirts. Wait, what?
Comment by Justin — January 26, 2009 @ 12:25 pm
Yeah, I wonder if they got embarrassed when they walked into the fabric store to make those black puppets, and just went with gray and got the hell out of there. But it’s pretty stereotypical of kid’s underwhelming enthusiasm these days. “Yeah, yeah…jesus loves me. yeah, yeah.” Come on kid, get excited! It’s jesus we’re talking about here!
Comment by Chris Ward — January 26, 2009 @ 12:38 pm
If Jesus REALLY loved the little children, he wouldn’t let this puppet travesty exist.
I guess we can be glad that the yellow puppets don’t say “Jesus roves the rittre chirdren.”
Comment by Art — January 26, 2009 @ 2:01 pm
When even your fonts are racist, you’ve gone too far. 70s Funk font for black folks? White-bread font for crackers? Shenanigans!
Comment by Chris Ward — January 26, 2009 @ 2:38 pm
Considering their own struggles in this country, I was saddened to learn that 80 percent of gray puppets voted for Prop 8.
Comment by dstyb — January 26, 2009 @ 10:54 pm
@dstyb — Alas, much of the pupp-ulation was misled by the bouncy “#8″ song on Sesame Street.
Black people come out ahead in stereotypes for once. They’re dressed like yuppies. And see that background? That’s real brick, my friend. Contrast with those white hayseeds. If you’re an adult wearing oshkosh b’gosh overalls, you failed. Puppet Huxtables laugh derisively at you, white puppet America.
Comment by Brendan McGinley — January 26, 2009 @ 11:30 pm
Crap! I just noticed Justin’s right — those aren’t sweaters; they’re Hawaiian shirts! I take it all back.
Comment by Brendan McGinley — January 27, 2009 @ 12:02 am
Holy Flash Update, Batman! The YouTube clip didn’t show up for me earlier. Suddenly your last sentence makes a lot more sense.
That is…wow, about 20x even more sterotypical than that animated GIF would lead a fellow to believe.
How come the “White” music is a stirring patriotic march? Granted, a stirring French patriotic march, but then it leaps into country, unifying the vast cowboy/Frenchman divide. What the shart? Whites are diverse but no one else is? Boo, Christian puppets, BOOOO.
Comment by Brendan McGinley — January 27, 2009 @ 12:50 am
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Pingback by Worst Cartoons Ever — January 27, 2009 @ 4:07 am
Oh My Goodness!!!! I remember this, the group actually came to my church when I lived on a millitary base in Witchita Kansas!!!! I swear I tell the story and NO ONE believes that a presentation like this existed. WTF was all I could think even at 7 years old!!!
Comment by shannon — January 27, 2009 @ 1:53 pm
[...] thought I would take a second to take a breather from Racial Insensitivity Week…it really is depressing seeing all these at once. So hey, why not show you what I ran into at Walgreens this [...]
Pingback by Worst Cartoons Ever — January 28, 2009 @ 12:36 pm
[...] folks—which either means people love being extremely uncomfortable, or they just enjoy seeing puppets cross new and exciting racial divides. Next week we’ll return to our more mature [...]
Pingback by Worst Cartoons Ever — January 30, 2009 @ 12:06 pm
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I wonder if it was simply a technical issue for the grey skin. Or something simple as they ran out of a fabric color. We’ll never know. I mean I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but still it’s hilarious.
Comment by chris — January 31, 2009 @ 12:47 pm
They used grey for the African puppets because they had already used a dark brown for the Native Americans. As a Welsh/Cheyenne American, I’m pretty offended by the “RED” part… All of it. I mean, it’s sinister and wrong-minded on several levels:
1. Calling American Indians “red” is a slur.
2. Dressing them in old ceremonial garb is an insult.
3. Clothes/Music indicate one religion, but lyrics insinuate another.
4. Chanting “HI YA YA YA” in the background deserves a punch in the head. Seriously. I HATE when anglos do that.
The only things missing to make their racial stereotyping complete were the kids saying “How” and “Me smoke-um peace pipe.”
Yes, Bugs Bunny used many of the same stereotypes to great comedic effect in cartoons that were never deemed racist even though the ones with tar baby stereotype images were pulled… But they did the Bugs Bunny cartoons in the 30s and 40s, and this, presumably, was in the 80s. I can forgive Bugs because it was the way things were back then.
Of course, I still take issue with sports teams like the WASHINGTON REDSKINS and CLEVELAND INDIANS using this same type of imagery and claiming it’s in “homage” to Native American people. It’s not; No more than having a team called the WASHINGTON DARKIES and CLEVELAND NEGROS would be an “homage.” When you have 10,000 people in a stadium making a chopping motion with their hand, chanting like cartoon Native Americans, that’s just as wrong as if you had a stadium full of people miming chomping on watermelon, singing “Mammy”.
Sorry… I went off on a tangent. It’s just that I see almost INSTANT ACTION when Africans are the subject of racist imagery, but nobody seems to give a damn that American Indian racism is practiced openly by major corporations. I guess if you drive a group of people to near-genocide, you don’t have to be as sensitive about them as you would a race that you purposely bred to larger numbers for your slave trade.
Comment by ZeroCorpse — January 31, 2009 @ 3:03 pm
@ ZeroCorpse’s rant - *yawn*
Comment by ThoughtSausage — February 1, 2009 @ 12:13 am
yeah, zerocorpse… the rest of us got totally hosed too. even the white people. so obviously me being asian that was incredibly offensive to me too for exactly the same reasons, just a different set of stereotypes. Or it should have been. But I wasn’t offended because this was sooo funny. I laughed so hard I can’t believe it.
Mickey Rooney forgave us asians for being upset after he was racist to us:
http://www.slanteyefortheroundeye.com/2008/08/mickey-rooney-forgives-us-all.html
How nice of him. I’m sure the people who made this video will forgive us too. We are all just heathen monkeys who need to see the light, after all.
And they’re hosing asians today too, exactly the same as native americans. Open racism to us all the time and nobody gives a rat’s ass. Videos like this are the least of our worries. Laugh a little. There’s a fine line between being offended and “it’s so racist you can’t be offended”. And you’re half welsh? I’m all asian, dude. I have a shirt that says “I Speak English” because americans still treat us like heathen savages even today in this new era of a black president. At least you can blend in with the rest of the population.
Comment by chris — February 1, 2009 @ 12:59 am
I WAS JUST WONDERING, WHO WROTE OR SUNG THIS SONG?
Comment by TAMMY — March 12, 2009 @ 5:20 pm
The guy from the “white” segment is clearly “black.” Get it right, racists! Your puppets suck!
Comment by Friginator — March 13, 2009 @ 5:50 pm
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Pingback by Worst Cartoons Ever — May 5, 2009 @ 5:10 am
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Pingback by Worst Cartoons Ever | Uniform Stores — June 1, 2009 @ 8:53 am
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Comment by asiantshirt — January 8, 2010 @ 8:21 pm
indian music is kind of cool and very stylish–`
Comment by Courtney Lloyd — June 22, 2010 @ 1:26 am
Indian Music is really cool and some of it are great dance music too.~;*
Comment by Gabriel Ellis — July 23, 2010 @ 12:23 am