60. Shuffle Off to Buffalo (1933)

Release date: July 8th, 1933

Series: Merrie Melodies

Director: Rudolf Ising and Friz Freleng

Starring: Johnny Murray (Baby), The Rhythmettes (Singing Babies), Eddie Bartell (Ed Wynn, Vocalist)

A concept that would be revisited in Bob Clampett's Baby Bottleneck 13 years later, an old man is in charge of sending storks to deliver babies to their rightful parents, and we get an inside look at the process.

A flock of storks are carrying their weight in babies, their wings flapping to a jazzy and addicting underscore of “Shuffle Off to Buffalo” (another song from the musical 42nd Street). The animation is done particularly well, especially when more storks emerge from the windows of a tower, flying in opposite directions and overlapping with each other. One of the storks flies straight towards the camera, a baby crying and opening its mouth, segueing us into the next scene.

Writing in a book, sitting at a messy desk with papers strewn about and telephones galore is an old man. He takes a few calls, the phones seldom providing any relief (like a less frenetic, more orderly version of Daffy answering all the phones in Baby Bottleneck) as he answers “Okay” over and over again.

One call in particular grabs his attention. We don’t hear what the other man is saying except for garbled nonsense, but the old man replies “Yes sir! What a man!” in delight. He grabs a stray paper off his desk and reads it, which says “Please send us twins. Hopefully, Mr. + Mrs. Nanook of the North”, the paper dated July 1933 and sourced from the north pole. Nanook from the North is in reference to the 1922 documentary of the same name.

The man shuffles his way to a freezer, opening it to reveal two Inuit babies inside wearing parkas. Funny gag, would be funnier if the babies weren’t so... stereotypical. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of that happening in this cartoon. He places the babies in two swaddles carried by a stork, one labeled “upper birth” and one labeled “lower birth”. The stork takes off and leaves the man to his duties.

He reads another paper, this time in Hebrew. He can’t decipher it, scratching his head, and places it in a basket attached to a pulley system above him. The basket is sent to the “Stork room” and a stereotypical Jewish baby with curly hair and a big nose returns to him. Safe to say I don’t think I need to explain why that’s not good.

The man stamps the baby’s diaper, deeming him kosher. Of course, this is a very opportune time to launch into the eponymous “Shuffle Off to Buffalo”. The baby carries on the song, dancing his way into a nursery where baby backup singers provide vocals—including a baby caricature of Maurice Chevalier. Very catchy song, another earworm for the collection! 

Similarities between this and Baby Bottleneck just keep on coming! We get a glimpse of the “baby factory” if you will, run by elves. It’s parallel almost exactly to the one in Baby Bottleneck, same gags and inventions. Raymond Scott’s “Powerhouse” is sorely missed!

Babies are thrown into a washing machine and dried via roller towel and a nozzle connected to a fan. Talcum powder is grinder onto them, much like a pepper grinder, and there’s a bar that flips the babies onto their stomachs so they can be powdered once more. Paper towels are substituted for diapers and are stapled shut with a staple gun. To make the safety practices even worse, one of the babies cries, and an elf throws it into the washing machine again and leaves his post! There’s also a scene (again parallel exactly to Baby Bottleneck) where the babies are fed milk through a crank operated tube, like a gas station. Finally, the babies are dropped off in bassinets and sent out to be delivered. Do all this and you’ll have your very own factory made baby in no time! 

The babies waiting to be delivered are fussy, screaming and crying. One of the elves snaps and insists “WELL, WHADDAYA WANT? WHADDAYA WANT?” of course, the babies cry for their hero, Eddie Cantor! This totally threw me for a loop. I love it! Even if you don’t know who he is, the fact that the babies will only be pacified by a celebrity is a hilarious concept in itself.

To make matters even funnier, an elf make his way into the nursery and takes off his mask (you meddling kids!), and it’s none other than Eddie Cantor. Our hero! He sings “Shuffle Off to Buffalo” call and response with a group of babies. Very entertaining to watch and listen to, and just full of absurd goodness.

One of Cantor’s lines include “I can impersonate Ed Wynn,” and sure enough he turns into a caricature of radio star turned actor Ed Wynn, warbling horribly off key. We then get our fill of MORE stereotypes, including a stereotypical Chinese baby singing some lines and a pair of blackface caricatured babies dancing offscreen.

One of the elves pull a curtain, and behind it cantor is playing the piano, complete with an elven orchestra. I adore how bizarre this is!

There isn’t much else to describe—Cantor continues to play and the babies get a kick out of it. The show ends and we fade out as the curtain draws to a close on Cantor.

Obviously, this cartoon had a fair amount of stereotypes, which were quite cringeworthy and awkward. Didn’t age well at all. But aside from that (with that acknowledged and considered), this was a good cartoon! Upbeat, bizarre, and swingy. Of course, I MUCH prefer Baby Bottleneck, which is a lot better in execution, in animation, in practically everything—but it’s also tied for my favorite cartoon of all time, so I have my biases. This was a good effort, though! Another Merrie Melody that didn’t really feel sentimental, just silly and bizarre. Let’s put these celebrity caricatures in here for the hell of it, huh? I’d recommend it! “Shuffle Off to Buffalo” should be criminal for how much of an earworm it is. If you do watch it, obviously view at your discretion with a few of the stereotyped babies.

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