67. I've Got to Sing a Torch Song (1933)

Release date: September 23rd, 1933

Series: Merrie Melodies

Director: Tom Palmer

Starring: Selmer Jackson (Announcer), Noreen Gamill (Zasu Pitts, Mae West, Greta Garbo), Bud Duncan (Cop), The Rhythmettes (Chorus)

Tom Palmer’s second and final effort at Warner Bros. This fares better than the disastrous Buddy’s Day Out, but only slightly. I also forgot to mention, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies have both adopted new theme songs. Looney Tunes’ 1933-1934 theme song is "Beauty and the Beast", which would become a Merrie Melody directed by Friz Freleng a year later, but it would be used all the way until “Porky Signature” replaced it for the 1936-1937 season. Merry Melodies adopts “I Think You’re Ducky”, which would be replaced by “Merrily We Roll Along” in 1936 and stay that way until 1964. Back to the synopsis: celebrities and personalities are abound as everyone tunes into the radio station to overhear their wacky antics.

A little light of creativity is finally shown with the opening sequence, various shots of people tuning into their radio sets with bated breath. What follows next is a sequence of gags, all revolving around the same radio show: an exercise program, the announcer dictating “One, two, one two, breathe deeply, one, two”. A family is shown bending at the waist, a man tightening his wife’s girdle, a father rocking his quadruplets, a man pulling tickets from a machine, and even a caricature of Benito Mussolini riding a mechanical horse in his bedroom. Bernard Shaw is also shown boxing at a globe. The animation and delivery suffers like it did in Buddy’s Day Out. Everyone is wobbly and janky and feels unstable, insecure—a reflection of tom palmer’s insecurity and indecisiveness as a director.

A caricature of Ed Wynn rides a horse on a stick, pulling a whistle on his trademark firemen’s cap and waving a bell. He yells into a microphone, “When you hear the gong, it’ll be 8:00 whether you like it or not!" Clocks in a clock shop come to life and grunt “You’re tellin’ us!” Tom Palmer utilizes a lot of fades. Fade between each scene. Face between the clock faces and the clocks actually having anthropomorphized faces. There’s nothing to break up the monotony, and likewise things feel like they blend together and become predictable.

Now, this did give me a good laugh (and not at Palmer’s expense), so good on him. Cros Bingsby Bing Crosby is in his bathtub, singing into a microphone treading the waters. Fade to a gaggle of gals gathered around a radio, listening to their favorite crooner. Another woman cradles her radio and kisses it affectionately. Back to Bing, who had previously been shown covered in bubbles. He turns on the shower head and rinses himself off, and we’re greeted with a rather disappointing Bing Crosby caricature. He looks too normal and indistinct, too smooth. A good descriptor would be mannequin-esque. Thankfully, the future holds many an entertaining Bing Crosby caricature for us to ogle at.

Another clever trick that is standard at the same time. We see two pairs of legs tap dancing, a mystery as to who they belong to. Pan up to reveal caricatures of James Cagney and Joan Blondell with their hands in their shoes. The animation is awkward and floaty as ever when Cagney playfully punches Blondell, who merely glides away. It’s a lack of spacing. There’s no spacing in the animation, no accents, no impacts, nothing. As a result, everything glides and feels loose and wobbly.

Back to Ed Wynn, who’s shooting a pistol and yelling “Hello, 8:00!” elsewhere, we turn to Ben Bernie conducting an orchestra, which turns out to be a record player. Not much to say on these gags, they feel very straightforward and present.

Palmer’s view fails to come forth once more as we get a shot of a bunch of little globes floating in space and spinning. It’s supposed to symbolize that everyone around the globe is tuned in, not just us locals in America, but instead it reads as jarring and confusing.

I also suppose I was pretty foolish to think that now that Harman and Ising were gone, the casual racism of the '30s would be put on the back burner—especially foolish since I’ve seen many shorts that are equally unsavory, if not more so than the ones made by Harman and Ising. We have ethnic stereotypes nonstop. Cut to China, where a man is pulling a cart labeled “Shanghai police”, all of the police asleep. The phonograph they’re listening to disturbs their slumber, and they tie it in a knot and go back to sleep. Elsewhere, we fall back to the “African cannibal” stereotype, a blackface caricature of a cannibal listening to a cooking show whilst mixing up a big pot of comedy duo Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey. The gag is trite and uninspired, little imagination present. Cut to the arctic, where an Inuit man is ice fishing. He reels in a big catch—a whale, diving away as the whale eats the iceberg he’s sitting on. The whale salvages the radio and dances to some tunes. Once more, the animation is alien and off putting, and the voice of the man screaming seems merely pasted on instead of a deliberate choice.

Animation of a harem dancer is especially poor, without a basic understanding of anatomy. Her limbs seem rubbery and almost broken. Though it is the era of rubber hose, it’s clear that wasn’t what they were going for. The sultan observing her is just as unimpressed, turning the station to listen to minstrel show Amos ‘n Andy.

After some redundant attempts at some gags, we finally launch into our title song “I've Got to Sing a Torch Song ”, sung by loose caricatures of the Boswell sisters. The harmonies are lovely as always and a joy to listen to. Probably the most bearable part of the cartoon.

Other characters chime in, including a man robbing a safe with a torch, and two men playing a jigsaw puzzle in a hole (signs labeled MEN AT WORK).

More caricatures sing the song, such as Greta Garbo, Zasu Pitts, and Mae West. Once again, the animation is lost and confused, caricatures underwhelming, and any chances of a laugh dropped. What’s also confusing is that Zasu Pitts is clearly in another setting: the curtain behind her (she’s the one in the middle) is a totally different color. Yet in the shot above, they’re all on the same stage. Palmer’s view is muddled in his own lack of confidence. There’s also a random cutaway to a Jimmy Durante statue of liberty, likely a last minute attempt to throw in a celebrity.

Finally, back to Ed Wynn and the tired 8:00 gags. He shoots a cannon, which launches himself into the air and straight through his own ceiling, where his wife and children (all donning firemen hats) all cry “SOOOOO?”, a catchphrase of Wynn’s as he laughs awkwardly. Iris out.

Though this cartoon was, well, bad, it fared slightly better by Buddy’s Day Out, but not by much. Tom Palmer’s lack of cohesion, clarity, and confidence reflect into almost every aspect of the cartoon. The animation is vague. The story is vague. The caricatures are vague. It’s all vague. I’m really disappointed about the caricatures, they feel way too toned down and normal, not at all funny. Being born in 2001, I’m not going to know who people born in 1900 are or what they look like (well, I mean I will, but the point is I don’t recognize every caricature I see. I spend a lot of time researching and frantically digging through the web as I type each review), but I can still appreciate them and laugh if they’re drawn, look, and act funny, and here there’s none of that. I do feel bad for Tom Palmer, though. Being plucked from Disney as an animator and put into a director’s position at a competing studio would definitely be shocking, especially with no prior directing experience. So I’m glad that he did what he did, managing to pull through, somehow. I wouldn’t recommend this cartoon: it isn’t even funny enough to hate watch. It just bears little significance overall. But, as always, I provide a link just in case!

Link!