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We interviewed Karl Cohen in his home/office in San Francisco. Cohen is an animation historian and collector, a professor of animation history at San Francisco State University, the president of the San Francisco chapter of the international animation organization, ASIFA, and author of many articles on animation, as well as the author of the unprecedented, and not so jolly look at animation’s dark side, “Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America” … someone’s gotta do it. Karl also writes and edits the ASIFA-SF newsletter, beloved all around the world as a comprehensive source for animation news and opinions.

ASIFA-San Francisco is the oldest and foremost Bay Area organization for the animation community, with members ranging from seasoned professionals to students and fans. Many think of San Francisco as a stepchild to Hollywood animation, and yet the San Francisco bay area is the home of Pixar, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), 3DO, PDI (DreamWorks), and more. So, it’s obviously a major animation hub, and Karl Cohen is among the most unique champions, with a keen interest in international animation and important political (in the best sense of the word) content.

If our interview does nothing more than inspire some of you to read “Forbidden Animation”, that alone will be worth the trip up to see him in San Francisco. The book is separated into five categories: censorship of theatrical animation, stereotypes in animation, uncensored animation, censoring animation on television, and blacklisted animators.

Just to give you two examples, let’s look to Cohen’s chapter on television, where he discusses the unbelievable decrees of “Broadcast Standards and Practices”, the self-imposed censorship the TV industry came up with, which had a department in each station, to deal with what should and shouldn’t go out on the air waves. Of course, he focuses on animation, and the list of censorship standards imposed there is absolutely hilarious, albeit scary, to be sure. The producers of The Smurfs, for instance, had to avoid making any of their characters appear to be magical or mystical, in order to avoid allegations that the show promoted Satanism. Cohen also quotes actual memos from one of the stations’ Standards and Practices departments discussing “tastefulness” in regards to the depiction of snot … “we expect this to look clear and shiny, rather than thick, green and disgusting”. The introduction of cable animation has fortunately been able to avoid most of this. However, it’s important that all of us know this history, so we’ll not repeat the mistakes.

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This episode is sponsored by The UPA Legacy Project.

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