Meanwhile, a Facebook campaign called "Unleash the banned Tom and Jerry cartoons" rages on. In Casanova Cat, above, Tom tries to impress a rich she-cat by blacking up Jerry's face with cigar smoke ...

That's what happened in 1948’s “Mouse Cleaning,” when Tom briefly wears blackface, and in 1951’s “Casanova Cat,” where Jerry ends up doing a minstrel act while in blackface.

CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as ...

Top Cat and Scooby Doo followed. In the 1970s the pair returned to Tom and Jerry. By then, many of the early episodes were considered "too violent" under fresh guidelines issued to networks.