Abstract: Disclosed are a pulse cancellation system and a pulse cancellation method for enhancing the effect of a small pulse superimposed on a large pulse, in the context of processing video signals in a circuit employing a compression video amplifier. The original waveform is delayed by a selected interval which is short as compared with the expected duration of pulses of interest in it, and the delayed waveform is subtracted from the original one to cancel the effect of those portions of pulses which are longer than the selected delay interval. Excursions of the resulting waveform which are on a selected side of a selected baseline can be removed, if desired. Alternative embodiments provide for selectively bypassing the delay and cancellation circuits, to feed the detector output directly to the compression amplifier in some cases, and for placing the small pulse enhancing circuit before the detector.