Related Research Articles
Silly Symphony is an American animated series of 75 musical short films produced by Walt Disney Productions from 1929 to 1939. As the series name implies, the Silly Symphonies were originally intended as whimsical accompaniments to pieces of music. As such, the films usually did not feature continuing characters, unlike the Mickey Mouse shorts produced by Disney at the same time. The series is notable for its innovation with Technicolor and the multiplane motion picture camera, as well as its introduction of the character Donald Duck making his first appearance in the Silly Symphony cartoon The Wise Little Hen in 1934. Seven shorts won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
The golden age of American animation was a period in the history of U.S. animation that began with the popularization of sound synchronized cartoons in 1928 and gradually ended in the 1960s when theatrical animated shorts started to lose popularity to the newer medium of television. Animated media from after the golden age, especially on television, were produced on cheaper budgets and with more limited techniques between the late 1950s and 1980s.
Cabell Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was a regular performer at the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he became a popular vocalist of the swing era. His niche of mixing jazz and vaudeville won him acclaim during a career that spanned over 65 years.
Merrie Melodies is an American animated comedy short film series distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It was part of the Looney Tunes franchise and featured many of the same characters. It originally ran from August 2, 1931, to September 20, 1969, during the golden age of American animation, though it was revived in 1979, with new shorts sporadically released until June 13, 1997. Originally, Merrie Melodies placed emphasis on one-shot color films in comparison to the black-and-white Looney Tunes films. After Bugs Bunny became the breakout character of Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes transitioned to color production in the early 1940s, the two series gradually lost their distinctions and shorts were assigned to each series randomly.
Rudolf Carl "Rudy" Ising was an American animator best known for collaborating with Hugh Harman to establish the Warner Bros. and MGM Cartoon studios during the early years of the golden age of American animation. In 1940, Ising produced William Hanna and Joseph Barbera's first cartoon, Puss Gets the Boot, a cartoon featuring characters later known as Tom and Jerry.
The Cotton Club was a New York City nightclub from 1923 to 1940. It was located on 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue (1923–1936), then briefly in the midtown Theater District (1936–1940). The club operated during the United States' era of Prohibition and Jim Crow era racial segregation. Black people initially could not patronize the Cotton Club, but the venue featured many of the most popular black entertainers of the era, including musicians Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Chick Webb, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Fats Waller, Willie Bryant; vocalists Adelaide Hall, Ethel Waters, Cab Calloway, Bessie Smith, Lillie Delk Christian, Aida Ward, Avon Long, the Dandridge Sisters, the Will Vodery choir, The Mills Brothers, Nina Mae McKinney, Billie Holiday, Midge Williams, Lena Horne, and dancers such as Katherine Dunham, Bill Robinson, The Nicholas Brothers, Charles 'Honi' Coles, Leonard Reed, Stepin Fetchit, the Berry Brothers, The Four Step Brothers, Jeni Le Gon and Earl Snakehips Tucker.
Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. was an American animation studio, serving as the in-house animation division of Warner Bros. during the Golden Age of American animation. One of the most successful animation studios in American media history, it was primarily responsible for the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of animated short films. The characters featured in these cartoons, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig, are among the most famous and recognizable characters in the world. Many of the creative staff members at the studio, including directors and animators such as Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Robert McKimson, Tex Avery, Robert Clampett, Arthur Davis, and Frank Tashlin, are considered major figures in the art and history of traditional animation.
I Love to Singa is a 1936 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies animated cartoon directed by Tex Avery. The short was released on July 18, 1936.
Clean Pastures is a 1937 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Friz Freleng. The short was released on May 22, 1937.
Stormy Weather is a 1943 American musical film produced and released by 20th Century Fox, adapted by Frederick J. Jackson, Ted Koehler and H.S. Kraft from the story by Jerry Horwin and Seymour B. Robinson, directed by Andrew L. Stone, produced by William LeBaron and starring Lena Horne, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and Cab Calloway. The film is one of two Hollywood musicals with an African American cast released in 1943, both starring Lena Horne, the other being MGM's Cabin in the Sky. Stormy Weather is a primary showcase of some of the leading African American performers of the day, during an era when African American actors and singers rarely appeared in lead roles in mainstream Hollywood productions. The supporting cast features the Nicholas Brothers in arguably the screen's most bravura dance sequence, Fats Waller, Katherine Dunham and her dancers, and Dooley Wilson. Stormy Weather takes its title from the 1933 song of the same title, which is performed almost an hour into the film. It is loosely based upon the life and times of its star, dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.
Academy Award Review of Walt Disney Cartoons is an American animated package film released in the United States on May 19, 1937, for a limited time to help promote the upcoming release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was a collection of five Oscar-winning Silly Symphonies shorts, bridged together with title cards and a narrator. Like The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, each of the cartoons had been released on their own at first before being collected together as one film. The separate cartoon shorts are now available on DVD. In addition, the film is 41 minutes long, just like Saludos Amigos. However, while this film is fully animated, Saludos Amigos would be far shorter without the live-action sequences. It is considered the first feature-length film in the Walt Disney Pictures filmography.
The Old Man of the Mountain is a 1933 American pre-Code live-action/animated short in the Betty Boop series, produced by Fleischer Studios. Featuring music by Cab Calloway and his Orchestra, the short was originally released to theaters on August 4, 1933 by Paramount Pictures. Calloway voices all of the characters in the cartoon save for Betty herself. Calloway and his orchestra also perform all of the music in the cartoon, including two songs Calloway co-wrote.
The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio was an American animation studio operated by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) during the Golden Age of American animation. Active from 1937 until 1957, the studio was responsible for producing animated shorts to accompany MGM feature films in Loew's Theaters, which included popular cartoon characters Tom, Jerry, Droopy, Butch, Spike, Tyke, and Barney Bear.
Swing Wedding is a 1937 MGM Happy Harmonies cartoon directed by Hugh Harman.
"Nagasaki" is an American jazz song by Harry Warren and Mort Dixon from 1928 and became a popular Tin Pan Alley hit. The silly, bawdy lyrics have only the vaguest relation to the Japanese port city of Nagasaki; part of the humor is realising that the speaker obviously knows very little about the place, and is just making it up. It was one of a series of US novelty songs set in "exotic" locations popular in the era starting with Albert Von Tilzer's 1919 hit "Oh By Jingo!"; "Nagasaki" even makes reference to the genre's prototype in the lyrics. Even more directly the song "On the Isle of Wicki Wacki Woo" was written by Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn in 1923.
Swooner Crooner is a 1944 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Frank Tashlin. The short was released on May 6, 1944, and stars Porky Pig.
Mother Goose Goes Hollywood is a 1938 animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. The short was released on December 23, 1938. The film parodies several Mother Goose nursery rhymes using caricatures of popular Hollywood film stars of the 1930s. The film was directed by Wilfred Jackson and was the third-to-last Silly Symphony produced.
Woodland Café is a Silly Symphonies animated Disney short film. It was filmed in Technicolor and released by United Artists in 1937 and was re-issued by RKO Radio Pictures in 1948. While it contained no on-screen credits, Wilfred Jackson was the director and Leigh Harline was the musical director.
Minnie the Moocher is a 1932 Betty Boop cartoon produced by Fleischer Studios and released by Paramount Pictures.
September in the Rain is a 1937 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Friz Freleng. The short was released on December 18, 1937.
References
- ↑ Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. p. 89. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7 . Retrieved 6 June 2020.
- ↑ "The Old Mill Pond - IMDb".
- ↑ "The 9th Academy Awards | 1937".
- ↑ "The Old Mill Pond (Harman-Ising Productions)". Archived from the original on February 7, 2014.
- 1 2 Sampson, Henry T. (1998). That's Enough, Folks: Black Images in Animated Cartoons, 1900-1960. Scarecrow Press. p. 194. ISBN 978-0810832503.
