How September 11th, 2001 affected cartoons/animation

[wonderfly]

Does anyone here remember how cartoons were affected (and perhaps still are) by the 9/11 attacks?

Here's some examples:

1. Just a few months before the 9/11 attacks, the final season of the Men In Black cartoon was on the air. Among the final episodes was an episode involving a battle on top of the World Trade Center. Good luck seeing that one on TV anymore! (although they should release it on a DVD if the MIB cartoon gets a DVD collection in time for the new MIB movie coming out next year).

2. There was 4 or 5 episodes left of the original Gundam series, which was airing on Toonami at the time. Thanks to the series' being a fairly graphic depiction of war, the series was yanked off the air (actually, I think Cartoon Network, like most cable channels, just stopped airing any cartoons and let their channel be taken over by CNN news for 24 to 48 hours after the attacks). So anyway, those final episodes of Gundam never aired, to the best of my knowledge.

3. The final scene in Lilo and Stitch (released in 2002) was supposed to involve an airliner jet originally, but after the events of September 11th, the "final battle" so to speak ended up revolving around the alien spaceships, not human jets.

Any others?

 

[Bubblegum Girl]

I know that the Invader Zim episode Door 2 Door was pulled off the air on the week of Sept 11th(And they replaced it with an Fairly Oddparents episode) because it had this scene which showed the Irken Armanda attacking New York. And this was an illusion created by Zim to force people into buying fundraising candy

They reaired the episode with an alternate scene which show humans getting captured by mutant man-apes, though ironically when they first reaired the episode they accidentally showed the original scene. (Though it was never in the DVD) Afterwards, they just showed the alternate scene.

I'm not 100% sure but I believe that this was one of the reasons why Invader Zim was cancelled.

 

[Dr.Pepper]

I heard somewhere that the first epiosde of Billy & Mandy that had Hoss Delgado in it originally opened with a scene of him saving kids from a burning building. It has been forever since I have seen the episode in question and I don't remember where I heard that from.

 

[Light Lucario]

Back when Cartoon Network was airing the first season of Pokemon, I remember how they skipped the "Tower of Terror" episode when they were following the episodes in order, most likely due to the title itself. I think that they also skipped the "Tentacool and Tentacruel" episode for the use of guns and a lot of buildings being destroyed during that episode. I believe that the same episodes, or at least the Tentacool and Tentacruel episode, didn't get a lot of repeat time when Kids' WB was airing the series either. I don't think that this was during the same year that 9/11 happened. I think that it happened a couple of years after that event, but it was still a sensitive topic, as it is now really, and Cartoon Network probably didn't want to air anything that could be similar to 9/11, in terms of cities being destroyed and all. Both episodes were included when they had the Kanto DVD boxsets though.

 

[Shredhead]

Does anyone here remember how cartoons were affected (and perhaps still are) by the 9/11 attacks?

Here's some examples:

2. There was 4 or 5 episodes left of the original Gundam series, which was airing on Toonami at the time. Thanks to the series' being a fairly graphic depiction of war, the series was yanked off the air (actually, I think Cartoon Network, like most cable channels, just stopped airing any cartoons and let their channel be taken over by CNN news for 24 to 48 hours after the attacks). So anyway, those final episodes of Gundam never aired, to the best of my knowledge.

From what I heard it was getting the boot anyway due to low ratings. Toonami that day just aired Dragonball and Dragonball Z and for awhile thats all that aired on Tonami. From what I remember CN was one of the few networks that weren't censor heavy. During the Majin Vegeta saga Vegeta shot and blew up a stadium full of people. They did air I think the last four episodes on a special event on Toonami Midnight run.

There were few episodes of pokemon that got pulled I think the episode with the giant Tentacruel (I think thats its name) got pulled and they had to rename some episode titles that had the words Terror or towers in the title. If there was one show that went overboard it was this one.

Anther episode that got delayed for a long time was the final episode Batman Beyond. It was taken out due to the use of terrorist group Kobra. I remember it was titled Unmasked and was the final episode and people thought it was a huge dark heavy series finale. When it aired people were really disappointed and made it known. Its the reason Bruce Timm has now made sure to do season finale's in all his shows now.

 

[PunkPhantom]

I believe there was a small part in a Spongebob episode that got banned becuase of 9/11.

It was the episode where Squidward eats a krabby patty for the first time and then he becomes obsessed with krabby patties and sneaks into the Patty Vault to eat all of them.

Anyways here's the clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wXW_m-_NbE

0:30-0:50 is the part that got banned. I don't know for sure why, but some speculate it was because of 9/11.

 

[Rainbow Sharpie]

I heard somewhere that the first epiosde of Billy & Mandy that had Hoss Delgado in it originally opened with a scene of him saving kids from a burning building. It has been forever since I have seen the episode in question and I don't remember where I heard that from.

Speaking of Billy & Mandy - its spinoff Evil Con Carne indeed had a scene removed due to the attacks.

IIRC, Hector Con Carne and Major Dr. Ghastly had invented a stink ray of some sort, and upon launching it, the ray is shown affecting other cities, including NYC - and the smell is so terrible that people are jumping out of the Twin Towers at varying heights.

Yeah.

 

[honorableninja]

any show involving a tower like structuce getting blow up was atlered digimon season 2 for examaple as all shots of control spires going down were removed as well as removal of the entire daemon corps episodes minus the first one and duel of the wargreymon due to the battles doing major damage to to the animated japan.

 

[CatChancey]

Back when Cartoon Network was airing the first season of Pokemon, I remember how they skipped the "Tower of Terror" episode when they were following the episodes in order, most likely due to the title itself. I think that they also skipped the "Tentacool and Tentacruel" episode for the use of guns and a lot of buildings being destroyed during that episode

I think they went as far to cut out the giant Tentacruel clip from the season 1 theme song. That was when it was still on Kids' WB, I think.

 

[Chaos Yoshi Mage]

In addition to the above, I think an episode of Transformers: Robots in Disguise was left undubbed and unaired and a Cowboy Bebop episode was delayed. I don't know any other changes.

The only cartoon I can think of that took a lot of inspiration (Sorry, I'm sure there's a better word to use here) from the tragedy was the anime series, Eden of the East. Which directly references the event and has a similar event happen in Japan.

 

[Light Lucario]

I think they went as far to cut out the giant Tentacruel clip from the season 1 theme song. That was when it was still on Kids' WB, I think.

I don't remember Cartoon Network cutting out that clip from the theme song when they were airing the first season. Though, it does sound like something like they would have done given that they didn't air that episode and the clip did involve a Tentacruel destroying a building. I'm pretty sure that the theme was kept the same on Kids' WB. Although, I don't think that Kids' WB played the Tentacruel episode after the 9/11 attack.

 

[Dantheman]

Some that I know of:

For a time after 9/11, Fox would cut out the part where the Planet Express ship crashes into the giant videoscreen in the intro to Futurama.

I heard that Toon Disney didn't air Talespin for a year or so after 9/11. Anybody else heard about this, or could add to it?

 

[Michael24]

I heard that Toon Disney didn't air Talespin for a year or so after 9/11. Anybody else heard about this, or could add to it?

It was just one episode that was banned, in fact the very last episode, "Flying Dupes." Baloo gets hired to deliver a package, unaware that it's actually a bomb.

 

[PhotonPhoenix]

Digimon season 1 episode My Sister's Keeper.

In the Jetix/Toon Disney broadcast of this episode, most of the scenes of Megadramon and Gigadramon were destroying the city are cut and Machinedramon used his Giga Cannon on the building where Tai and the others were in was cut out also.

 

[wonderfly]

I remember hearing about Digimon Season 3 (with the new cast) having a couple of episodes edited, but don't recall Seasons 1 and 2 being edited. Season 3 was the one that was actually on the air in the Fall of 2001, if I recall right.

To go with the opposite of cartoons that were cut or edited, were there any cartoons or animes that actually increased in popularity following Sept. 11th? For example, I remember reading that one of the reasons the first Spider-Man movie was so popular in 2002 was because it was great "escapism" for a terrorism weary nation (and maybe the use of New York City as a backdrop for Spider-Man helped).

Was there anything like that for cartoons/anime?

 

[Ed Liu]

Cowboy Bebop episode 8 ("Waltz for Venus") was apparently pre-empted for a while on Adult Swim because it involved a hijacking in the first few minutes.

o go with the opposite of cartoons that were cut or edited, were there any cartoons or animes that actually increased in popularity following Sept. 11th? For example, I remember reading that one of the reasons the first Spider-Man movie was so popular in 2002 was because it was great "escapism" for a terrorism weary nation (and maybe the use of New York City as a backdrop for Spider-Man helped).

I think Sam Raimi said that the scene when all the New Yorkers start throwing stuff at the Green Goblin was his tribute to 9/11 NYC, when our popular image of being gruff, unfriendly people was broken (the "you mess with one of us, you mess with ALL of us" line seemed especially relevant, because there was certainly that sense in NYC afterwards). However, I'd say that it was just a really good Spider-Man movie more than that we were collectively seeking some specific kind of entertainment.

However, both on-topic AND tying in to your question above, I would say that Monsters Inc. got quite a bit of press for the way it had those yellow-suited guys running around dealing with "2319" incidents and shutting down whole buildings to scan for human children, while the real-world CDC was doing similar things for the anthrax poisonings. They also changed one scene in the movie because of 9/11: originally, Harryhausen's restaurant was going to be blown up, but they changed it because they thought, "This isn't funny any more." I think the original scene is actually on the Blu-ray somewhere, but I could be imagining that.

 

[trunkschan90]

Cowboy Bebop episode 22 Cowboy Funk was banned for a while because a terrorist named Teddy Bomber used bombs in teddy bears to bring down high rise buildings.

 

[wonderfly]

IHowever, both on-topic AND tying in to your question above, I would say that Monsters Inc. got quite a bit of press for the way it had those yellow-suited guys running around dealing with "2319" incidents and shutting down whole buildings to scan for human children, while the real-world CDC was doing similar things for the anthrax poisonings. They also changed one scene in the movie because of 9/11: originally, Harryhausen's restaurant was going to be blown up, but they changed it because they thought, "This isn't funny any more." I think the original scene is actually on the Blu-ray somewhere, but I could be imagining that.

Oooh, Monsters Inc came out in 2001? For some reason my memory thought that it was 2000 (I didn't see it in theaters, instead waiting till it was on DVD a few years later). That's a great example though: IMDB says it came out in November 2001: I'm sure that was great escapism for America in the months following Sept. 11th.

Just to put it another way: Was there any cartoons or anime in late 2001 or in 2002 or possibly 2003 that were really popular possibly BECAUSE of Sept. 11th. Either due to it being great escapism or because of terrorism being a theme of the show (like how the show "24" with Kiether Sutherland suddenly became the anthem for us fighting terrorism following Sept. 11th - was there something similar to that for anime/cartoons?)

 

[HG Revolution]

Just to put it another way: Was there any cartoons or anime in late 2001 or in 2002 or possibly 2003 that were really popular possibly BECAUSE of Sept. 11th. Either due to it being great escapism or because of terrorism being a theme of the show (like how the show "24" with Kiether Sutherland suddenly became the anthem for us fighting terrorism following Sept. 11th - was there something similar to that for anime/cartoons?)

Not much I can think of that early on outside of episodes of South Park, but later on in the decade Eden of the East played heavily on the events and emotions of 9/11. I know the darker tone of The Incredibles, particularly the "they WILL try to kill you" speech Elastigirl gives to the kids, was also influenced by the general mood of that time.

 

[OnePark]

It doesn't really pertain to the actual show, but almost stopped production of the show. The show? Family Guy. Seth MacFarlane was supposed to be on one of the planes that crashed into the towers. He was late by a few minutes, this saving his life.