Wednesday, May 16, 2012

The First X-Rated Cartoon in Britain

1953 Animated Adaptation of Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," The First X-Rated Cartoon in Britain

1 comment:

Todd Mason said...

I've had this one embedded in the past...it's a fine piece of work (that Brian Arnold brought to my attention) and it's a real pity that not too much followup has been accomplished from the mainline animators. (See Damon Knight's suggestion that early Bradbury horror stories would make brilliant, terrifying cartoons of a similar sort.) And it should be noted that Brit censors have always had a remarkable squeamishness about horror that might appeal to children (horror comics, including their printing plates, being something that was explicitly banned from export at one time, and perhaps still, officially, as a relatively unobserved law)...this X, of course, had no sexual triggers...if anything, a sexed-up cartoon would probably have been treated more permissively, even in the relatively puritanical UK of the 1950s.