Disclaimer: once again, racist content and imagery is in this review. I don’t at all endorse it, this is purely for historical, educational, and informational purposes. The stereotypes and caricatures are gross and wrong and need to be exposed as such. Thank you for taking your time to read this and understand.
Release date: May 26th, 1934
Series: Looney Tunes
Director: Ben Hardaway
Starring: Bernard Brown (Buddy), Billy Bletcher (Chief)
We have Ben Hardaway’s first directorial credit! He, Friz Freleng, and Jack King would dominate the cartoons of 1934 and 1935, Tex Avery stepping in with Gold Diggers of ‘49. Hardaway would direct 7 Buddy cartoons and go back to being a gagman and storyman, co-directing with Cal Dalton starting in 1938 while Friz Freleng briefly left for MGM, returning to Warner Bros in 1939. Here, Buddy resides in the jungle, but a cannibalistic tribe may put the tiny Tarzan in jeopardy.
Our tiny Tarzan comes out of his “house”, inflating his chest and giving a hearty, grating, obnoxious call of the wild that will be reused many times in this cartoon. Joy! He swings from vine to vine, accompanied by some slightly out of place yet nice music by Bernard Brown (who’s credited instead of Norman Spencer).
Buddy engages in some Flintstones-esque activities (granted this was 26 years before the flintstones), showering under the trunk of an elephant and brushing his teeth with a cattail. Other animal centric gags include a giraffe gargling water, an alligator using a porcupine to brush his dentures, and a monkey shining a hippo’s teeth.
Elsewhere, a mother gorilla is rocking her child, feeding him coconut milk. The mother proves herself to be rather responsible, leaving the baby alone. As all curious babies do, the baby rocks its cradle—so aggressively that it topples over the edge and into a river.
Terrified to find her child gone and floating happily down a river, the mother gorilla rushes to Buddy for assistance, who’s cutting open a coconut. The monkey is on trajectory to topple right over a waterfall—but not if Buddy can help it. He attaches a vine to a dagger and tosses the dagger, sticking into the back of the baby’s cradle.
Buddy pulls the mischievous monkey to safety, and all is well as the animals of the jungle celebrate uproariously. The mother gorilla scoops up her child and scolds it, the other animals dancing around buddy in celebration.
Now enter the stereotypes. A blackface caricatured native spies on the celebration through a telescope, and is delighted at what he sees. He slides down the coconut tree he’s perched in (some nice visuals of the bark shedding off) and runs to a village, where the leader sits in his throne—almost identical to Bosko Shipwrecked!. I had no idea there were so many cartoons about cannibals, let alone racist interpretations of cannibals. The spy fills the king in, who responds “Well, shut my mouth!” he rings a dinner triangle, which is a man’s nose ring.
The entire village congregates at the sound of the bell, including a man reading “NUDIST NEWS”, two men playing ping pong with their mouths, and a family, their baby swinging by their nose rings. The king explains the situation in nonsensical garbles, and the village chases off, the king carried in his own escort. The music is nice and snappy—the only plus I can say for this half of the cartoon.
Buddy and a monkey are playing a game, which is interrupted by a spear nearly taking off Buddy’s finger. He sees the charging tribe and places the monkey on his back for safety, swinging up to his hut in the trees and giving another excruciatingly annoying call of the wild.
All of the animals in the jungle collaborate with Buddy. An elephant uses seeds as bullets, a kangaroo beats up a man who hangs by a spear (tossed by Buddy) by his nose ring, and a hippo is used as a cannon, a monkey swinging and hitting it in the butt to fire the coconut cannons. The coconuts hit the natives, who fly over the edge of a cliff and swim away. A pelican also holds a monkey in its beak, who tosses coconut bombs below—right at the cannibal king. Porcupine needles and coconuts consist of the artillery used against the cannibal: all intriguing gags but tired. As always, appreciation is significantly lessened with all of the stereotypes and caricatures running amuck.
Buddy swings on a vine and kicks the cannibal king’s head in, beating him to a pulp. The dust settles and Buddy is on top, giving a victorious call of the wild as the monkey places the cannibal king’s crown on Buddy’s head. Iris out.
Not my favorite cartoon at all. After just seeing Goin’ to Heaven on a Mule, this feels extremely mild. The stereotypes and caricatures are all there in their gross lack of glory. As always, I understand the historical context, how it was a different time—still doesn’t make it any less wrong, though, and doesn’t mean they were okay then and wrong now. These depictions have always been wrong. Nevertheless, the first half was slow but slightly amusing with the animal gags. The music was lovely and the animation... it was hard to see because of the print, but it wasn’t the worst. Ben Hardaway isn’t one of my favorite directors, but I don’t hate him. Ultimately, skip this cartoon. It has a lot of action, but drags on the entire time, and the caricatures/stereotypes make it unsavory. But, as always, I’ll provide a link, just view at your own discretion.
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