Why is this cartoon racist and xenophobic?
It was made in the 60s, but still there is no excuse because people were not this racist back then. In the sixties you had numerous programs which were not racist. It would be excusable for something from the 1930s, but 1960s are the era of civil struggle and anti-racist awareness. A good comparison can be made with the Belgian comic Tintin which is a similar action-adventure saga. It was racist at the beginning. But it started in 1929. By the end of 1930s it became opposite of racist. It doesn't mean that there were no villains who are foreigners. Only that foreign cultures were not presented as evil and there were also positive foreign characters.
And the political propaganda in the JQ Anubis episode was pretty malicious. Legitimate calls for Arab unity was attached to some evil guy. You could see that the general politics in America (like today) was to have as much countries fighting against each other so that they can steal their oil. But why spread this propaganda in a children's cartoon? Were Americans this desperate?
βThe British cinema is made of dullness...β - F. Truffaut