133. Bingo Crosbyana (1936)

Release date: May 30th, 1936

Series: Merrie Melodies

Director: Friz Freleng

Starring: Billy Paye (Bingo), Billy Bletcher (Spider), The Rhythmettes (Chorus), Berneice Hansell (Giggles)

The second cartoon that sparked a lawsuit by Bing Crosby himself. This one is the most well known of the two as “the lawsuit cartoon”, which I find strange—Let It Be Me’s depiction of Bing is much more defamatory and vile than Bingo Crosbyana’s. With that little segue: Bing(o) returns as a flamboyant fly, wooing all of the flies in the kitchen. However, his act is quickly dropped once he encounters a menacing spider.

Where else do flies congregate to indulge in hearty meals? Pan into a kitchen. Two flies share a plate of pasta, pulling a Lady and the Tramp before Lady and the Tramp  was a thing—slurping on the same noodle and throwing each other together, literally butting heads. Another group of flies gorge themselves on the contents of an orange, using macaroni as straws to slurp the juice out.

Who knew flies suffered from poor eyesight like us boring humans? One fly fashions a safety pin and a toothpick as a bow and arrow while another poses confidently, an olive resting inside his head ready to be pierced. Unfortunately, the armed fly has trouble with his depth perception, unable to focus. The other fly senses this and urges his buddy to stop before a catastrophe can occur. He marches off screen and reappears with a comically enlarged orange positioned perfectly on his tiny little cranium, now more confident than ever to be shot. His buddy fires... and still manages to miss, pinning the fly against the wall by the wings.

Enter our favorite swooner crooner, Bingo Crosbyana. I love the staging, playing around with shadows and silhouettes is an easy way to earn my appreciation. A group of girls crane their necks to get a good view of the source of those warm, warbly tones. A sombrero-donning silhouette of a fly strolls into view, strumming a guitar and crooning his way along. One fan situated in a wall mounted matchbox is particularly smitten with Bingo. However, her mother isn’t as pleased, marching out and dragging her inside by the ear, finally pouring a teacup of water over bingo’s shadow. Warm crowd! 

Segue into a formal introduction of the title song as a trio of girls sing the chorus. They’re accompanied by various visual and instrumental gags all contributing to the samba beat of the music. I have to say—Friz’s Merrie Melodies are way under appreciated, especially during the dark ages of the Buddy cartoons. Carl Stalling is undoubtedly the best composer the studio had, but Friz’s collaborations with Bernard Brown and Norman Spencer’s music make for a wonderful pair. Even if the visuals aren’t exciting to match the music, you can always count on music to be saving grace, even in the worst of cartoons (not that this is bad! Just an aside.) Bingo himself gets spruced up, dousing himself in perfume and admiring his reflection in a tin pan.

Bingo grabs his guitar and meets his bobbysoxers, tipping his hat with a bow and contributing his own voice to the song. Once the song is concluded he silences the applause with a hand: “Alright, alright. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” 

With that, Bingo flies into a table, where he uses it as a plane runway, soaring around the kitchen like a literal airplane. He zooms around the kitchen (the scene amplified in humor by the ridiculous plane sound effects), swerving in and out of the caverns that lie in swiss cheese, speeding over a crowd and nearly taking off the heads of a bunch of angry fly-men, swiping off the feathers of a cuckoo bird (returning the way he came to take off one last tail feather), un-threading the buttons off of some flies’ pants with a needle, and so forth. Some nice classic bit of loony humor as Bingo writes “How’m I doin” in a trail of smoke produced from a match he striked. The camera angles are fun and experimental, and the animation as he finally skids to a halt on the kitchen table is smooth, bouncy, and mesmerizing.

All of the girls are enamored with bingo, whereas the men are seldom pleased. Bingo surveys his crowd of adoring fans, selecting one of the girls from the crowd as his dance partner. We enter a second chorus of “ Bingo Crosbyana”, vocals still fresh and fun. He and his girl engage in a dance sequence that is particularly pleasing to look at. Very flouncy, swingy, and smooth, and pairs very well with Freleng’s timing. Some fun added in as a fly scratches his back on the rough side of a matchbox to the beat of the music. The girls all applaud the dance, while the men grumble and point.

A favorite of any cartoon: the Billy Bletcher spider (this will still be an ongoing trope). A menacing spider lowers himself down to the table where Bingo and his girl are positioned. The girl spots the spider and shrieks, which grabs Bingo’s attention. A great visual as Bingo is literally scared yellow (old slang for being frightened, typically in a mocking way), temporarily stricken with jaundice as he darts away from the spider and frightening speed, much to the bewilderment of his fans.

With Bingo out of the way, his girl is now vulnerable, screaming as she desperately attempts to dodge the nefarious clutches of the belly laughing spider. Some crowded (but in a suitable way) animation as he weaves his way through the gaggle of terrified women, going for anyone he can grab. All of the women dive into a roll of wax paper for refuge, and even cowardly Crosbyana pokes his head out of a nearby teacup, diving into the roll himself and effectively knocking out all of the girls from the other end, putting them in danger as the spider nears.

The spider sticks his head inside the roll of wax paper, and the men who had grumbled and cursed at Bingo before work together to save him. They snag a nearby mixer and work together to get it spinning, striking the spider painfully right in the butt repeatedly. Fueled with new motives, the aggravated arachnid chases after the men, cornering one straggler in particular. The straggler pops open a bottle of champagne, the cork pressing right up against the spider and shooting him across the kitchen, landing right into an electrical cord.

Sure enough, the spider is stuck. Another fly turns the cord on, and the spider is flooded with painful volts of electricity as he rockets into the air in agony. The plug becomes loose and the spider flops down to the ground, right onto a piece of fly paper. Victory at last! The flies crowd around to laugh and jeer as they observe the spider helplessly attempting to dig and crawl his way out of the paper to no avail.

Now hearing laughter instead of screams, Bingo pops his head out of the wax paper and senses that the coast is clear. He perched himself on a nearby spoon to get a good look for himself at the events he had missed. More than pleased, Bingo grins and puffs out his chest, hilariously boasting “Well, we certainly got him this time!”

 He’s met with angry glares from all genders, and a fly jumps on the other end of the spoon in retaliation. Bingo is catapulted into the air, crash landing in a full teacup, where we iris out on his bewildered expression.

As I mentioned before, I found Let It Be Me to be much more defamatory than this one. Not that defamation is inherent to the quality of a cartoon, but I DO find the former to be the better entry. But that isn’t to say this is a bad cartoon by any means. It certainly echoes The Lady in Red in terms of designs and characters, and both this and The Lady in Red  have its charm. Bingo was amusing (that ending is fantastic, as is the scared yellow gag) and the animation in the cartoon was particularly beautiful. However, it felt more like a 1935 cartoon than a 1936 cartoon (there is a difference!), at times feeling a bit barren and stretched out. Yet overall, not a bad short. It wasn’t the funniest or most fascinating, but the dance sequences in particular were entertaining to watch. 50/50 in terms of recommendation. It wouldn’t be a total waste of a watch, but it wouldn’t kill you if you avoided it, either. It’s always up to your call! 

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