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The suicidal Peter Lorre fish. Censorship or not?


There are two versions of Horton Hatches the Egg (1942). The end of the original includes a fish, a caricature of Peter Lorre, pop out of the water, see Horton and say "Now I've seen everything!" He then puts a gun to his head and blows his brains out.

The other version has that scene removed.

Do you think this removal constitutes censorship? Maybe.

I don't know if it is censorship as much as a compromise of the artists' original intent. Does artist's intent count?

What do you think?

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Just saw this. I'm a teacher and showed it on a DVD from our school's library. Sure enough, the fish took out a gat and shot himself in the head.

Wow. Just wow..

The kids laughed and then kind of stopped laughing because the fish died.

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I just finished watching the original and I was unpleasantly surprised by the suicidal fish. Dr Seuss didn't have it in his book and it doesn't further the storyline, so why put it in. I watch a lot of commentaries where they talk about why they put things in and take things out and this makes no sense in a children's movie. It isn't funny. It doesn't enhance the storyline. It's unnecessary. Removing it is not censorship...it's editing.

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