because the spirit of Looney Tunes hasn’t yet reached the ninth circle of hell

The pair has "Walter the Farting Dog" in development at Fox, with the Jonas Brothers starring and the Farrelly Bros. directing

Please kill me.

oh. my.. GAWD! did anyone -- a *anyone* of whatever age and background - honestly think that SG was a clear and obvious example of mexicans? really? he was fast! that was his whole thing... speedy, see?

what's next? pepe le peu done as a modern romancer on the internets? without the french accent? or the skunk thing?

and -- sorry, i have to jump in here again -- when did george lopez (perfectly described as the least funny comedian of any ethnicity) when did he become the arbiter of all things "latino"?

His last name is Lopez. Q.E.D.

The pair has "Walter the Farting Dog" in development at Fox, ...

I anxiously await "ASS: The Motion Picture".

george lopez (perfectly described as the least funny comedian of any ethnicity)

Clearly someone unfamiliar with the 'comedy' of Dane Cook. I mean, Lopez leaves the crickets chirping, but Carlos Mencia makes coyotes howl in a vain attempt to drown out the 'jokes'.

What's racist about the old Speedy? Isn't he popular in Mexico? In 1950s whitebread America, he was 1)the hero who 2) was known for being hard-working and generous and who 3)helps the poor and downtrodden by 3)often outsmarting the villain (though sometimes he just outruns or outmuscles him). How many Latino characters like that do we have on mainstream American television now?

I saw that on IMDB and groaned. Sorry, but I liked the "racist" Speedy. If that makes me un-PC, then so be it.

I wonder which is more racist, having stereotypes, or thinking you've removed them by making the character whiter? So far the names on this program don't inspire me to believe than can do anything else.

Oh yeah, we might be all hating on Sokolov and Cohen now, but wait until Walter the Farting Dog comes out! Laugh all you want at Speedy Gonzales, but nobody's ever laughed at a Farrelly brothers movie!

oh. my.. GAWD! did anyone -- a *anyone* of whatever age and background - honestly think that SG was a clear and obvious example of mexicans? really? he was fast! that was his whole thing... speedy, see?

I suspect this piece sums up the reasons why certain Latins are objecting to it.

What's racist about the old Speedy? Isn't he popular in Mexico? In 1950s whitebread America,

Stop there and you have the answer. Speedy Gonzalez was a _relatively_ positive mexican character, but that's in contrast not only to the other common stereotypes at the time (Like the "Frito Bandito"), and to the other characters in the cartoons he stars in.

It's still broad brush caricature and stereotypes done by a bunch of white guys playing off the popular culture at the time.

Hell, "Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarves" _for it's time_ had a features that were progressive. These days though, even an african-american army regiment being the heroes looks retrograde compared to the integrated military we've had for decades, and the blatant racism of the cartoon stands out even clearer.

Well, having remembered Speedy as a Mexican Robin Hood (which is how I thought of him as a kid) but not having seen his cartoons in a long time, I did a little surfing. It seems that most of the racism is not concerning Speedy but the other mice, who needed Speedy's help because they just weren't up to snuff.

And I do think that it is ironic that Speedy is popular in Latin American but pulled from US TV.

Clearly someone unfamiliar with the 'comedy' of Dane Cook. I mean, Lopez leaves the crickets chirping, but Carlos Mencia makes coyotes howl in a vain attempt to drown out the 'jokes'.

I actually own a copy of Lopez's first comedy CD, Alien Nation, and for a while there, I thought he had promise. But then I watched a few episodes of his TV show and even the presence of Constance Marie--one of my favorite actresses--couldn't get me to tune in on a regular basis. (I did watch some syndicated reruns with my last ex-girlfriend though.)

At best, Lopez is like Bill Cosby. I loved Cosby's early comedy albums but I never really got into either of his two series and I always thought the latter show was an easier program to admire than to watch. Of course, it didn't help that it came on at a time when I was sick of conventional family sitcoms. (Though as Family Guy, Married with Children and Two and a Half Men have proven, unconventional family sitcoms aren't always that great either.)

In any event, anyone who has ever heard Lopez go off on Mexican-Americans who go to Taco Bell can't help but find it a bit ironic to see old George getting a taste of his own PC medicine.

But I must admit that I find the prospect of a new Speedy Gonzalez movie not half as daunting as the fact that Latino movie-goers aren't likely to see a lot of alternatives--even on the small screen.

Ugly Betty is having its last season this year, The Office doesn't seem likely to last too much longer, Modern Family makes Ugly Betty look like a Norman Lear show and Weeds I haven't dared looked at since the end of the third season. (The fact that most of the Hispanics on that show during that period were either servants or drug dealers doesn't give me too much hope though.)

Every so often, I see cause for hope. (For example, the way the Lauren Velez character was fleshed out on the TV show Dexter in a way that was a lot more believable and sympathetic than the way she was depicted in the original novel.) But not much, alas...