37. I Love a Parade (1932)

Release date: August 6th, 1932

Series: Merrie Melodies

Director: Rudolf Ising

Starring: The King's Men (Chorus)

This Merrie Melody is more of a spot gag cartoon, which would become increasingly popular as time goes on (Tex Avery did many a spot gag cartoon). I Love a Parade focuses on the various antics of multiple sideshow acts at the circus.

What better way to open a cartoon with a disconcerting clown jumping around and laughing hysterically? 

After the clown laughs in the face of the audience in a horrifying closeup, we focus on a parade scene (hence the title of the cartoon). There’s a tiny dog playing an oversized tuba, whereas the hippo next to it puffs out notes on its tiny little flute. Another good use of incongruity for humor. We also focus on a kangaroo playing on a trumpet, the joey in its pouch sporting a clarinet.

A lion playing a drum (carried by one of the many Mickey Mouse lookalikes we see in these cartoons) tears the drum, and Porky Pig bursts out and bids us “That’s all, folks!”...I wish. Lame jokes aside, the lion bursts the drum and shoves it inside a dog’s mouth, playing his newfound invention.

“I Love a Parade” is sung by four members of the audience in beautiful barbershop harmony. We watch some more gags as they sing, including a lion tamer pulling a lion in its cage. They go through a pipe, and once they come out on the other side, the lion tamer is snarling and shaking the bars of the cage while the lion is happily perched at the front of the wagon. Another great gag is a final verse of “I Love a Parade”, where a janitor crow growls “OH YEAH?” and angrily takes out a shovel, in preparation for the elephants’ feeding time. I love how delightfully crude these cartoons can get.

Cut to the sideshow portion of the cartoon. The ringmaster, whose design I love—big fat cigar and gaudy checkered jacket—introduces a variety of acts, including JoJo the wild man (an unsavory native stereotype), a rubber man who turns himself into a tire and allows the ringmaster to bounce him like a ball, Siamese twin pigs who smoke a cigar, one inhaling and the other exhaling...

This guy’s my personal favorite. A muscly brute covered head to toe in tattoos, literally. He bows his bald head, showing a tattoo of a flirtatious woman’s face who winks and blows a kiss. What a great visual! He also shows off a tattoo on his bicep of a woman in a bathing suit. When he flexes his muscle, her butt inflates. Now that’s classy, sure to win all of the ladies (I know I’m swooning at the sight) and make every man jealous for miles.

A hippo is dancing, when a mouse blows a steamer and tickling the hippo. She giggles, and turns around to see the perpetrator. The mouse is nowhere in sight, but the muscled brute is. She smacks him, and in a daze, the tattoo of a ship on his chest sinks. Obviously the gag was reused from Battling Bosko, but they get a pass just because I love it so much.

More sideshow acts to be showed off, including “The skinny man from India”—who’s Gandhi playing a pipe, summoning a goat to dance. Harman and Ising sure liked their Gandhi references.

The casual racism of some of these exhibits makes it hard to enjoy (like the native man in a cage or Gandhi also being shown as an “exhibit”), but the tattoo gag was a good one, and the Siamese pigs were amusing too.

We take a break from the sideshow acts to watch a hippo riding a horse. There’s a cloud of dust as the hippo jumps off the horse, bows, and jumps on again.

The roles are switched, with the horse riding the hippo. A standard that loses its charm after being used so much, but funny regardless.

To remind us that this is a Merrie Melody, we have a cat singing “I Love a Parade” (rather annoyingly) as she balances her way on a tightrope. While she sings, there’s a shot of an ostrich outside of the circus tent, poking its head through a hole. A gang of mice shoot at the ostrich via slingshot, reused from Ups ‘n Downs.

Probably the best part of the cartoon: the lion tamer and his lion. The lion tamer instructs the lion to open his mouth, where he puts his head inside and grins at the audience. Of course, we switch roles, where the lion opens the tamer’s mouth and puts HIS head inside, beaming at the audience. 

Unprompted, the lion begins to itch his back and scratch at it ferociously. To remedy the situation, he takes out a pair of dentures and gnaws at the fur, and in disgustingly comedic fashion, a swarm of fleas stream out of the fur. Iris out.

This wasn’t the worst cartoon out there, but it certainly wasn’t the best. As I mentioned before, the casual racism of some of the “exhibits” were rather cringeworthy, and the cartoon felt more plotless than usual, even for a spot gag cartoon. Nevertheless, there were some good highlights, such as the crow angrily stalking off to shovel some poop offscreen, the tattooed man, and the lion posing as a lion tamer. If you’re curious you could give it a watch (I link these cartoons regardless of opinion), but it wouldn’t be the end of the world if you skipped it. View at your own discretion of course with a few of the racist exhibits. I shouldn’t say they’re as BAD as other cartoons but they’re there.