107. Buddy in Africa (1935)

Disclaimer: this review entails racist imagery, content, and concepts. I don’t endorse any of these stereotypes or depictions whatsoever, I find them gross and wrong. However, it would be just as wrong to gloss over them and act like they didn’t exist. This review is purely for educational and informational purposes. I ask and thank you for your understanding.

Release date: July 6th, 1935

Series: Looney Tunes

Director: Ben Hardaway

Starring: Jackie Morrow (Buddy), The Four Blackbirds (Chorus)

Ben Hardaway’s last Buddy cartoon. Buddy sets up a moving variety store shop in Africa, but a pesky monkey and gorilla cause problems for our little shopkeeper.

Just a normal day where a man is mowing the grass in his African village, or so we think. A pan out reveals that he’s perched on top of a house, mowing the straw roof. Another gag includes a human juicer, a man twisting the bone in his hair to squeeze the juice out of the fruit in the man’s mouth. Some villagers engage in a game of horseshoe, a man tossing children and using their nose rings to get caught onto the stake in the ground. As always, racial stereotypes and caricature are abound and uncomfortable.

Enter chipper Buddy, whistling away as he totes his trailer behind his car, advertising a variety store. A gorilla is hitchhiking, eagerly sticking out his thumb when Buddy approaches. Buddy rides straight on by, bad news for the gorilla, who dismisses him in frustration. There’s a nice (albeit standard) gag of a monkey traffic cop and a giraffe posing as a traffic sign. The monkey directs the traffic, while a kangaroo (in Africa?) stuffs litter in its pouch.

A guard waits by the entrance of the village. He spots Buddy approaching and snags another villager, shaking him and ringing him like a bell. Everyone pokes their heads out to see what the occasion is as Buddy drives through the gates.

Buddy screeches to a halt and begins to set up shop, beating on a drum, his butt, some pots and pans, greeting the crowd congregating before him with “Howdy, folks! Here it is!” Jackie Morrow’s voice acting is very cute, and it’s neat that they got an actual child actor (I believe I read somewhere that he was 9 when he voiced Buddy). I think Jack Carr’s voice suited him more, though—it was an ambiguous child AND adult voice. It could pass for either, just like Buddy’s appearance. I guess it’s just a little strange seeing buddy Buddy a car and own a house and talk in a child’s voice. Just something very petty to nitpick at, Morrow does a very good job of voicing Buddy. The villagers exchange fruit for the goods as the trade ensues.

There’s another rather redundant and arbitrary shot of the gorilla hitchhiker before cutting back to Buddy and his booming business. One of the villagers goes into his hut with his newfound collectibles. He twists two lightbulbs in his ears, which add some much needed light into the dark hut. He placed a lampshade on his head and reads the newspaper, a gag that would be directly used in Friz Freleng's Jungle Jitters. Elsewhere, another villager stuffs fireworks in his mouth and lights them, flying off into the distance. It’s an absurd gag, but the abruptness and almost incoherence of it makes it highly amusing.

Meanwhile, our little salesman triumphantly displays some bottles. “Here’s a drink that’ll cure your jitters,” he announces in rhyme, “Buddy’s famous Jungle Bitters!” One of his customers takes the bottles Buddy was holding in his hands, whereas a pesky little monkey decides to help himself, too. Buddy scolds the monkey, but the monkey isn’t bothered, chattering and slamming Buddy’s car door shut.

Four of the villagers drink the bitters—music strikes. A man plucks his hair like a bass as they sing “Marchin’ Towards Ya, Georgia!” A very catchy song indeed with lovely vocals, but appreciation severely muddled by the blatant blackface caricatures staring you in the face. A man plays an elephant like a pair of bagpipes, a man stretches out his lips and plays them like a muted trumpet, and a woman sings some vocals. She has some sort of pipe on her neck, and a man annoyed with her singing turns a knob that shuts her up. Meanwhile, Buddy merrily juggles his bottles.

Two of the villagers dance, bouncing around doing handstands. Obviously, this whole scene, not to mention entire cartoon is cringeworthy and painful to watch (unfortunately, this is relatively tame compared to other cartoons), but the animation is solid, very bouncy and fun. A turtle plays itself like a banjo while the four singers finish up the song. Very catchy indeed.

Back to the monkey, who’s proving himself to be quite the nuisance. He bangs the bottle against the car in an attempt to open it—Buddy yells at him to stop and to give it back, but the monkey refuses. Buddy chases the monkey around the car—he dives under the car, where the monkey pops out on top and hits the bottle against Buddy’s head. Buddy snags the bottle (which somehow isn’t broken) out of the monkey’s hands and spanks him. Back to the Harman-Ising days of spanking gags! How we miss you! 

Accomplished, Buddy releases the monkey and laughs. The monkey shakes his fist and wanders off, right back to the hitchhiking gorilla. The monkey chirps and squeals about his horrific encounter with buddy, patting his own butt for good measure. The seemingly docile gorilla scowls and rolls up its fur-sleeves (such an overdone gag, but a big guilty pleasure of mine. I can’t help but love it!) menacingly. It puffs its chest out and tips its hat forward, preparing to march along. A nice detail as the monkey follows behind, also puffing out his chest.

The gorilla and monkey come to a standstill as a guard confronts them at the entrance to the village. A lovely little bit of acting as the gorilla shrugs at the monkey for advice, the monkey punching its palm. The gorilla takes its orders and pummels the guard into the ground, the gorilla stepping on his head and the monkey poking his eyes.

Predictably, Buddy gets his. He’s pumping up a tire when the gorilla terrorizes him, stepping onto the tire and propelling buddy upwards. The gorilla catches buddy and slams him down onto the tire, pumping the air pump and propelling him offscreen. Thusly, the gorilla snags the pump and tire, preparing to beat Buddy senseless by swinging the tire like the world’s most painful lasso. The scene reads as incoherent (even aside from the poor quality) as the tire hits the gorilla instead, shooting it into the distance. A tree slingshots the gorilla back to where it was (nice rubbery animation of the tree), and the gorilla barrels right into a lookout tower. The tower collapses, trapping buddy AND the gorilla who are both unscathed. Finding great humor in the debacle, the little monkey laughs at the gorilla. In a moment of camaraderie, the gorilla exchanges a glance with buddy and punches the tire. The tire sends the air pump handle rocketing, which in turn hits the monkey, who flies into the distance. Iris out as foes become friends, the gorilla and Buddy shaking hands.

Hardaway’s Buddy cartoons, in my opinion, were slightly weaker than King’s. In general, they’re all pretty bland—the titles blend together and I can’t even remember if I have a discernible favorite or not. I know I had commended a Buddy cartoon relatively recently and labeled it as good, but I can’t even think of it! Thus proves Buddy’s blandness. This is another bland one, more than usual. Right off the bat the racial stereotypes and caricatures make the cartoon an uncomfortable watch. The monkey and gorilla scenes were amusing, though. The ending battle read as incoherent and incomprehensible, I kept having to rewind it just to formulate what was going on. It was certainly creative and high energy, though, and I applaud that. The song number was nice and catchy, but that’s it. I hate to say “it could have been worse” because blackface is blackface and stereotypes are stereotypes, any inclusion at all is immediately bad. But I suppose there are cartoons out there that are more mean-spirited than this one, more of a “celebration everyone sings and dances for the fun of it and everyone gets along”, but still. Not pleasant and cringeworthy. Even besides that, the cartoon doesn’t have much going for it at all. You won’t miss anything by skipping.

But, as always, I’ll provide a link. Obviously view at your own discretion.