Release date: December 4th, 1937
Series: Merrie Melodies
Director: Frank Tashlin
Starring: Mel Blanc (Alexander Owlcott, Walter Finchell, Milton Squirrel, Wendell Howl, Happiness Boy, Fred Allen, W. C. Fieldmouse, Dick Fowl, Fats, Irvin S. Frog, Fred McFurry, Ruby Squealer, Lanny Hoss, Raven MacQuandary), Danny Webb (2nd Happiness Boy, Joe Penguin, Al Goatson, Andy Bovine), Cliff Nazzaro (Eddie Gander, Bing Crowsby), Tedd Pierce (Ben Birdie, Tizzie Fish, Jack Bunny), Eloise Spann, Lorraine Bridges (Grace Moore, Lily Pons)
This cartoon gets the honorable award of possibly being the most dated Warner Bros. shorts in its vast repertoire of cartoons. Not to worry! This will be a fun cartoon to unpack—I love delving into the shorts that involve extensive research. Learning something new is something that‘s very rewarding to me, and I hope it is to you, too!
A giant ode to the short lived radio program Community Sing (lasting from 1936-1937), the short chronicles a woodland radio show hosted by a variety of caricatured animals putting on various acts.
Iris in to the ringing of a bell. A pudgy, bespectacled owl rings it as he stands illuminated by the moonlight, preaching to all of the woodland critters, ready to start the show. He introduces himself as “Owlcott”, a take on commentator Alexander Woollcott. He “blandly announces” (his words, not mine) the introduction of the master of ceremonies, Ben Birdie–a bird caricature of radio personality Ben Bernie, “The Old Maestro”.
Birdie’s caricature is not new to audience’s eyes. The caricature, along with a handful of others, is reused from Friz Freleng’s The Coo-Coo Nut Grove from 1936, a short that is very similar in vein to this one. Tedd pierce provides Birdie’s suave, velvety vocals as he introduces the program, only to be interrupted by the nasally cries of Mel Blanc.
Out pops Walter Finchell, a caricature of Bernie’s faux-enemy Walter Winchell, both of whom carrying a notorious (and fake) feud in the radio-verse. It was common for Winchell to interrupt the smooth-talking Bernie, either throwing pranks or remarks his way, to which Bernie dismissed every time. Indeed, a signature Tashlin upshot angle reveals Finchell dropping an egg on top of Birdie, who blocks it nonchalantly with a handy umbrella.
Art Loomer’s backgrounds for the cartoon are absolutely gorgeous. They’re vibrant in color, very lush and painterly, but remain playful and sophisticated at the same time. They certainly serve as a highlight to the short. And, as always, Carl Stalling’s scores are a blast to hear–his sardonic, wah-wah rendition of “Cause My Baby Says it’s So” is a jolly juxtaposition to the prior score of “Love Is On the Air Tonight”, the latter being the song’s cartoon debut.
Birdie introduces a clever squirrel caricature of Milton Berle, whose routine gets interrupted by a little parrot named Polly. Polly is a take on Eileen Barton’s character, little Jolly Gillette, who was portrayed as the daughter of the show’s sponsor. Polly and Milton go through their act together, Polly bluntly (yet innocently) announcing “My daddy says ya gotta let me sing ‘cause he’s a sponsor!” You can listen to real recordings of their banter here!
Volney White’s animation of Milton and Polly is lively and jovial, constantly moving. Milton energetically introduces us to our next star, pointing in the wrong direction and fixing it last second as he gestures towards a bird caricature of country singer Wendell Hall.
Even if viewers don’t recognize the bird’s counterpart, they will most certainly recognize his voice--Mel uses his Foghorn Leghorn voice for Wendell “Howl”. Of course, Foghorn wouldn’t debut for another 9 years, but that’s another story. The animation of the raucous bird is fun to watch as he extends his neck and wraps it around in coils around the microphone stand. Random? Yes, but fun nevertheless.
Perhaps even more commendable is the staggering crowd shot that succeeds Wendell’s scenes. The crowd is mirrored horizontally, but that doesn’t lessen the blow from how claustrophobic it is. Wendell asks the audience to get out their songbooks and turn to page “22… no, page 44. Uh, no, uh, page 28. Uh, 42, uh, 36, uh, 45…”
Wendell is transformed from an entertainer to an auctioneer, spitting out numbers at rapid pace as his crowd frantically tears through their songbooks. Finally, he concedes. “Oh, never mind. We won’t use the books.” Off screen, the crowd roars in unison: “OH YES WE WILL!”
With that, Wendell is generously showered with a barrage of books, buried in the pile of rejected papers. The timing of the scene is comedically sharp and energetic, one of the more entertaining acts of the cartoon.
Now, for the real song number, lead by goat and bear caricatures of Billy Jones and Ernie Hare (would a rabbit caricature be too on the nose?) respectively, animated by Volney White. They march out onto the stage--er, tree trunk--and open the curtains to reveal a sing-along to the eponymous song. Thus, the camera pans into the lyrics as everybody bursts into the all-too-earworm-causing song number.
As the crowd, Ben Birdie and Walter Finchell all lend their voices to the song, a fox caricature of Fred Allen sings “Swanee River”, clashing with the unity of everybody else. In a nod to Friz Freleng’s Toy Town Hall where the same routine was executed, a little bunny excitedly coos “Ohhhh, Mr. Allen! You’re singing the wrong sooooong!” The fox bursts into everybody’s favorite Mel Blanc Yell as he repeats a frequent ‘30s catchphrase: “WHY DON’T SOMEBODY TELL ME THESE THINGS!?”
Featured in the song is a seemingly interminable cast of celebrity caricatures, all introduced as the camera pans across the screen, each lending their voice to part of the song. Some puns require more effort than others (Dick Powell as “Dick Fowl” rolls off the tongue better than Al Jolson as “Al Goatson”).
Caricatures include: Eddie Cantor as Eddie Gander, Sophie Tucker as Sophie Turkey, W.C. Fields as W.C. Fieldmouse, Dick Powell as Dick Fowl, Fats Waller as Fats Swallow, Deanna Durbin as Deanna Terrapin, Irvin S. Cobb as Irvin S. Frog, Fred MacMurray as Fred McFurry, Bing Crosby as Bing Crowsby, Al Jolson as Al Goatson, Ruby Keeler as Ruby Squealer, Lanny Ross as Lanny Hoss, Grace Moore as Grace Moose, and finally Lily Pons as Lily Swans.
Speaking of Grace and Lily, they’re both highlighted as they fight to out-perform each other, seeing who can sing the highest note. Tashlin pulls of a rather intriguing camera move: as the pan settles on the two of them, the background changes. It’s a subtle maneuver, but smart thinking nonetheless--especially since the camera extends into a vertical pan.
As both women fight to sing the highest note, their necks extend, both of them scaling high into the night sky, harmonizing on one final shrill note. They both crumple back into the stands, exhausted by their efforts. Some fun exaggerated animation for sure--one wonders how much further this would have been pushed had this been Tashlin’s second stint at WB rather than his first. His speed often rivaled, if not out-performed, Tex Avery’s.
Birdie and Finchell have a brief interstitial together before making way for a raven caricature of Haven MacQuarrie (Raven McQuandry). His sequence is almost jarringly short, but full of fun drawings and poses–the pose of him standing curtly with his arms crossed is awfully reminiscent of Izzy Ellis’ work under Tashlin and later Bob Clampett in the mid ‘40s.
McQuandry asks “Do YOU wanna be an actor?”, parroting the name of his real life counterpart’s show So Do You Want to be an Actor? The audience shouts “NO!” in unison, causing McQuandry to do a take and shrug dubiously. Though the scene is only a few short seconds, the animation brings forth some much needed vitality.
Next is a penguin caricature of Joe Penner, singing a hilariously out-of-tune rendition of “My Green Fedora”. The animation is reused from the cartoon of the same name (notice how he doesn’t have penguin feet!), which was also used in Toy Town Hall. Not a complaint, but more an observation--this is by far the most humorous performance of the song yet, sung by Blanc rather than Tommy Bond.
Another fun scene with some vivacious animation is a sequence featuring a mule caricature of Martha Raye (dubbed Moutha Bray), singing a cover of “How Could You?”, which has been featured as an underscore in cartoons such as Porky’s Badtime Story and its later remake, Tick Tock Tuckered.
Raye’s large mouth served as prime material for caricatures, as we see here. The animation is snappy, fun, and vivid--she finishes her song by “swallowing” the camera, an old trick that beckons memories of the Harman and Ising cartoons of animation past.
An interesting trend in the ‘30s WB cartoons is the trend of playing with the iris, whether it was the closing iris out or an iris in between transitions. Tex Avery would consistently play with the final iris out on his cartoons, whereas directors such as Friz Freleng and Bob Clampett would use one as a transition between scenes. Here, Tashlin uses the “swallow the camera” technique as a segue for an iris in, Tedd pierce’s falsetto squeaking “Hello folksies!” as we’re introduced to a fish caricature of Tizzie Lish, a character played by Bill Comstock on Al Pearce and His Gang.
Though Tizzie has long faded into obscurity (as has the entire Community Sing radio show), it’s still quite easy to appreciate Pierce’s vocals and mannerisms as he portrays the character. It’s always a joy to hear him doing voices for cartoons--he’s never been my favorite writer on the crew, but he was an excellent talent as a voice actor.
His squeaky deliveries, matter of fact deliveries “Mix them up… are you mixing? My friends say I’m a good mixer. Are you? Or aren’t you?” as Tizzie haphazardly dumps food items and their respective utensils into a bowl and prepares the meal are nothing short of hilarious. The timing is very well executed and can be appreciated regardless of background knowledge.
After humming a pitchy rendition of “The Lady in Red” while waiting for her concoction to bake in the waffle iron, Tizzie removes the homemade waffle and discards it, instructing the audience “Now take the ‘wiffle’ out and eat the iron. You must have iron in your system. Or should you?” Thus concludes Tizzie’s act, certainly heightened in hilarity by Pierce’s vocals and timing.
For the final act, Ben Birdie introduces a possum caricature of Louella Parsons, the host of the radio program Hollywood Hotel, which served as a way to advertise upcoming movies by featuring guest stars enacting some of the scenes. Here, we have caricatures of Jack Benny (as Jack Bunny, the first of his many reoccurrences), Mary Livingstone (Canary Livingstone), and Andy Devine (Andy Bovine).
Tedd Pierce voices Andy Bovine, whose voice was burlesqued not only in this cartoon, but to a greater extent in Friz Freleng’s My Little Buckaroo not even a year later. Devine, a western star, was notorious for his scratchy, shrill voice which was rife for comedic opportunity.
Indeed, this scene here with Pierce’s vocals is nothing short of hilarious: the trio chronicle the prodigal’s return, in which bunny and canary coo over their baby son. Out of the bassinet pops incongruously large bovine, who shrieks “HOWDY MAAAA! HI PAAAA!”, the sheer volume of his voice enough to blow both of his parents away and out of the scene. And, with that, the scene ends, red curtains colorized from Porky’s Romance marking the sequence’s end. Short, sweet, to the point, and hilarious.
Ending right where the cartoon began, the owl caricature of Alexander Woollcott bids us farewell, the iris closing in on the bell he rings as he exclaims that all is well.
Like so many other cartoons I’ve reviewed, this is one that I slowly warmed up to upon rewatching it and typing out the review for myself. I didn’t entirely dislike the cartoon upon my first watch, but it’s undeniably dated and deserves its title as possibly the most dated cartoon.
Without further research, some of the jokes and caricatures (if not all of them) are difficult to appreciate. The animation has bursts of energy throughout the short, the highlights being the scenes featuring Raven McQuandry and Moutha Bray, but otherwise remains relatively simple and conservative. Tashlin does incorporate a few intriguing camera angles throughout the cartoon, but many other entries of his are far more cinematic.
However, despite all of that, this cartoon is not without its bonuses: Art Loomer’s backgrounds are stunningly gorgeous and rich, and as someone who loves the lush, painterly backgrounds of the 1930s, this is heaven to me. And, as I mentioned previously, Tedd Pierce’s scenes are great--the Tizzie Fish and Andy Bovine sequences are undeniable comedic highlights.
So, if you’re willing to dedicate time to put in the research for this cartoon, you’ll find it’s quite fascinating! I’m certain this was a much bigger gut-buster in 1937 than it is in 2021, but even then, this is a good cartoon for people such as myself who love to learn more information and seek out facts.
As a result, I’d recommend it to people who fall into that category. If you’re just someone who wants a good laugh and a leisurely watch, there are more interesting cartoons that lie ahead. You won’t miss much by skipping it.
With that said, here’s the link!
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