I can’t say enough about the great job Emru Townsend has been doing on his ReFrederator guest shot, Black Comedy Week. So, instead I’ll guide you to his prolific output on the web and once again implore you to buy online issues of his great fps: The Magazine of Animation.
Check out more Emru Townsend:
Black History Pages
The Accidental Blog
PC World’s Digital World
fps: Festival Watch
fps: Release Watch
5×5 Media
–Fred
Whenever I see this short, the same thoughts run through my head: Good God, Sambo’s mom doesn’t even look human. This is the worst “sexless-mammy” depiction I’ve ever seen. The shine on her arms makes her look like living sausage.
It still amazes me that Sambo was originally from India (hence the tiger), but somehow morphed into a nappy-headed pickaninny when the stories came to the States. Say, where is this supposed to be taking place? Black talcum powder for black behinds. Ha ha. Oh, I didn’t see that one coming.
Like most of Ub Iwerks’s shorts, this is a pretty harmless cartoon. What’s interesting is that aside from the black talc bit, Iwerks didn’t go with the regular practice of using the characters’ blackness as a jumping-off point for gags. If anything, it’s just a cartoon remake of the Sambo story, minus the pancakes.
I really love this phase of Iwerks’s work. [Read more…]
When people defend racist cartoons, one of the stock arguments is that it’s unreasonable to be offended that black people are portrayed unflatteringly; after all, Elmer Fudd isn’t usually presented as a brilliant or capable man.
It’s a bit ironic, then, that some of the animation and gags in this cartoon featuring the Stepin Fetchit-like Little Sambo were recycled for Elmer Fudd in The Big Snooze five years later. The parallel is convenient because it directly points up the flaw in that stock argument: Elmer Fudd’s flaws are never attributed to his being white. That’s the crucial difference. Sambo’s lackadaisical walk and the cadence of his drawl are both key elements of the “shiftless Negro” stereotype that performer Lincoln Perry hadn’t created, but perfected as Fetchit; and they were recognized as traits that were intrinsic to the black male. The same goes for the gag toward the end where Bugs Bunny presents [Read more…]
Perhaps the most surprising thing about this cartoon is that the marketplace scene, with its variety of depicted ethnicities and clothing styles, is probably the closest to the real thing I’ve ever seen in a golden-age cartoon. Other than that, though, it’s a fairly typical cartoon pseudo-documentary, with lots of groaners that wouldn’t be out of place in a middling Tex Avery cartoon—it just so happens that most of the jokes centre around Africa, or its inhabitants, being uncivilized and savage. In fact, the follow-the-bouncing-ball song at the end is entirely about Africa’s lack of civilization.
Like most of the cartoons here, I first saw Jingle Jangle Jungle on televison. Until the mid-1980s or so, WPTZ (our NBC affiliate) showed classic cartoons every weekday afternoon. We got it all: shorts from UPA, MGM, the Fleischers, Warner Bros., DePatie-Freleng, you name it—and all of it was uncut. It was a great time [Read more…]
Emru Townsend edits (and founded) one the most respected journals in all of animation, fps: The Magazine of Animation, and I’m proud to have him as our premiere guest producer and blogger for the special feature Black Comedy Week. Emru’s got a unique perspective on the subject and I’m particular grateful to him for venturing in with us.
When I worked at Turner Broadcasting (running Hanna-Barbera) in the 90s I fought hard, often, and ultimately unsuccessfully for the company to do a special, limited edition video of their racially charged cartoons from the Warner Bros. and MGM libraries. No go. They were sensitive –rightfully I think– about the subject matter, and I got mixed feeling from my grandma research in the Black community. I felt –still feel, obviously– the material represented an important, if often repulsive, historical document, and that contextualized properly, it served a great purpose to have it out.
Emru [Read more…]
Before Bugs, before Daffy, before even Porky, there was Bosko: Warner Bros.’ first breakout character, and star of Sinkin’ in the Bathtub, the very first Looney Tune.
Sinkin’ in the Bathtub is one of those shorts that seems fairly benign—after all, none of the gags are racially based, and there are no overtly racist intonations to the portrayal of Bosko and his girlfriend Honey. Unlike other shorts of the day, there’s nothing to suggest that Bosko or Honey are lazy, untrustworthy, stupid or given to base urges simply because of their skin colour.
At the same time, Bosko and Honey perfectly exemplify what’s wrong with the way blacks have been depicted in cartoons. Their design is so grotesquely exaggerated that if it weren’t for two clues—Bosko’s speaking voice and Honey’s tightly braided hair—the viewer would be hard-pressed to guess just what they’re supposed to be. That’s not conjecture; in his book That’s [Read more…]
Every medium, it seems, must have its lingering controversy. In the cartoon world, it’s the issue of ethnic portrayals. This week, ReFrederator presents five cartoon shorts many people have never seen, because they all contain stereotypes of black people. The controversy about how we’ve been portrayed throughout the golden age of cartoons has ebbed and flowed over the decades, but it’s remarkably easy to distill to four simple points:
1. Back in those days, America was racist.
2. Cartoonists were created using the stereotypes and imagery of the day.
3. These cartoons are hateful/hurtful/offensive/insensitive and, especially as cartoons are generally the province of children, should not be shown—or at least not shown with the original racist imagery.
4. These cartoons are historical and cultural artefacts that deserve to be seen in their original forms. To do otherwise would be to whitewash (he said, noting the irony) history.
As an analytical, political, black cartoon fan, I [Read more…]
Friday’s film, “Inky and the Minah Bird,” has, along with all the other Inky cartoons, been kept under lock and key and off television airwaves for years. Since our hero is a black character designed and drawn by mid twentieth century white artists, he’s been lumped together with other undesirable stereotypes (Bosko, Jasper, Sambo, et al) and more or less ignored by the mainstream purveyors of animated high jinx.
Next week we will devote five whole days to specifically examine banned shorts featuring African American characters — starting Monday it’s Black Cartoon Week at ReFrederator !
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“Inki and the Minah Bird” brings our Great Directors Week to a close — vintage weirdness from Warner Brothers’ elegant auteur, Chuck Jones. There were only a handful of cartoons made starring little Inki and his friend/prey, the Minah Bird, and they all have pretty much the same, offbeat set-up: a small African boy goes hunting — runs across a dour looking, hopping bird with magical powers. Oddness ensues. That’s it!
These are all great looking cartoons — terrific backgrounds, and wonderful character animation. I really dig the ‘acting’ here (I think this is one of the few WB cartoons in which the great Shamus Culhane stretched his animating muscles.) Those bit-part bugs early in the proceedings are especially cool.
Monday — new week, new theme!
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Dave Fleischer is the Great Director of the day, and “Betty Boop’s Crazy Inventions” is the cartoon at hand. Betty, Bimbo and KoKo the Clown host an invention convention of sorts, which boasts more screwy and wildly unnecessary technological innovations than you can shake a Sharper Image catalogue at. A sewing machine that does its job ALL TOO WELL becomes the hit of the show, and leaves us all in stitches (ha,ha, ha, ha, ha, ha… hey, it’s first thing in the morning — cut me some slack!)
Tomorrow we try to keep up with the Jones — well, one in particular, anyway…
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