Pass the Biscuits, Mirandy (8/23/43) – Had it not been for affixing a wartime ending to this film, this cartoon might have fit well in TV rotation among Lantz’s other product, and perhaps be remembered alongside such hillbilly epics as Tex Avery’s “A Feud There Was”, Disney’s “The Martins and the Coys”, and the like. Based on a number introduced by Spike Jones, the film initially follows the plot of the song lyric rather closely, and keeps connection with the Jones recording by hiring vocalist Del Porter for the soundtrack, who also sang it on the record. After a hard day of “shootin’ everything [and everyone] in sight”, a hillbilly craves food, and our principal head of household calls for Mirandy’s biscuits, and some gravy to sop ‘em in. Mirandy, who rather closely resembles Mammy Yokum from L’il Abner, prides herself on her buscuits, which won her her man. However, she also prides herself on having no recipe – just throw in the kitchen sink, including glue and chicken feathers to make ‘em light, mix the dough on a washboard, flatten it out in a washing machine wringer, and slap in in an old stove with a spring-release ejector to pop ‘em out when they’re done. For all their renown, the biscuits have one problem – they’re entirely inedible. Chomp down on ‘em, and upper and lower teeth warp in opposite directions. Slap ‘em with an axe, and watch the steel bend. Toss ’em out the window, and knock down the neighbors’ shack. The rival family declares from the rubble, “Mandy’s baking them blockbusters again”, and come a-runnin with their shotguns blazing. Following the song, Mandy’s old man gets the brilliant idea to load all the clan’s rifles with biscuits instead of bullets, to drive the ornery cusses off. In the original song, the idea doesn’t work so well – causing the mountaineer’s gun to explode in his face. Here, however, the biscuits work like a charm, racking up score after score on the rival feuders. The whole fracas is interrupted by someone posting an official war office bulletin on a post nearby, ordering that all families in the area must work or fight. Work? No hillbilly ever heard of it. So both families wind up on the front lines, with Mirandy still supplying the ammunition as a member of the WAAC’s. Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo make an appearance in a command tank, and are blasted by the baked bombshells, and transformed into a German sausage, a bowl of spaghetti, and a dish of steaming rice. The hillbillies sing in celebration, while the end title asks us to buy more war bonds for victory. There are three known recordings of the song – Spike Jones on Bluebird and on Standard Transcription, and the Merry Macs on Decca – also a quite entertaining version. Spike would also get to perform the number on film, in an unusually gag-laden and highly-entertaining Soundie.

Boogie Woogie Man (9/27/44) – Here’s one that still hasn’t made it intact to the internet (though it was released remastered on the Volume 2 DVD set, The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection, which is a must as substantially more comprehensive than and current blu-rays). In the ghost town of Goose Pimple, Nevada, a Spook of the Month Club convention is being held for ghosts, presided over by a duct devil who spins underneath a saloon tablecloth and transforms into a rotund ghost, broadcasting on a ghost-to-ghost hookup (yes, the line was already old news by the time Paramount got around to using it). For reasons unknown, all of the delegation in attendance except an old bearded ghost from a vintage bottle of “spirits” feels that the fright business is slipping, and unless ghosts become hep to the jive, their chain clanking and clammy hands will be regarded as so much corn. A delegation of three black ghosts from Lennox Avenue sets the pace vocally and on piano (performed by the “Lew Mel Morgan Trio” – at least, that’s how they’re billed here, although their handful of commercial recordings, including sides for Super Disc and Apollo, as well as V-Disc and MacGregor transcriptions, credit them as “Loumell”). They are joined in the film by the ghost orchestra of Spook Jones and his Creepy Crooners. Soon everyone – even Grandpa ghost – is dancing away, until a clock chimes 5:00 a.m. (chimes rung by a figurine hammering on whiskey bottles). Everyone does a quick disappearing act before sunrise, with the chairman last to leave, converting himself back into a dust devil to whirl his way out of town. “Boogie Woogie Man (Will Get You If You Don’t Watch Out)” is not to be confused with several recorded songs of similar titles during the period, and appears to be an original (was it composed by the performing trio or a collaboration with Darryl Calker?), unique to this film.

• The only decent clip from “Boogie Woogie Man” available is on DailyMotion.

Though the musical selection is old hat to this article series, it is too tempting to pass up mention of Woody Woodpecker’s The Barber of Seville (4/10/44), which of course uses the standard aria from the work, Largo Al Factotum. Woody takes over a barber shop when he finds that its proprietor never came back after leaving to take a draft board physical, (“Maybe I can cut my own hair. I cut my own teeth.”), then inflicts chaos upon its customers (an Indian chief, and an Italian construction worker). What is notable about this film, besides being a tour de force for Woody himself and for James Culhane’s energy-filled style of direction (watch for a scene of Woody calling everywhere for Figaro, developing into a pyramid of six Woody’s standing one atop another), is the uncredited vocal performance by Lee Sweetland, a concert-trained baritone, who proved to be the perfect singing match for Woody’s spoken voice when his voice tracks were speeded just right. Little seems to be written about Sweetland, but his connection with animation dates at least as far back as Disney’s Farmyard Symphony (1938), where he provided the voice of a singing farmer operatically calling his pigs. His most commonly-available photo shows him singing to an NBC microphone, indicating his obtaining of radio work, and he was a regular vocalist with an Olde Tyme group, Georgie’s Tavern Band, on Decca. He would record several concert-style operetta works with Paul Weston’s orchestra for Capitol. His wife, Sally Sweetland, would have her own singing and acting career, and the two of them operated a voice studio to teach their art for years. Lee’s sterling performance as Woody in this picture not only puts over a fine rendition of the aria (if you have capability to play the track slowed-down, it must have been a task to sing the piece with extended holds of notes in slow motion, yet come across with convincing dramatic effect when the track is played in Woody’s key), but is even climaxed by a singing version of Woody’s laugh, which again seems an absolutely perfect vocal match to what we would expect from the character’s vocal chords.

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The Greatest Man in Siam (3/27/44) – A contest to select Siam’s most suitable suitor for the hand of the royal princess is announced by King Size (we wonder how decades later, Paul Smith, who worked on this short, transformed the King into a mouse as ruler of Rodentia). The event is sandwiched into the palace schedule, around the scheduled bowling match at 3:30 between the Lockheed and Kaiser Welders. Contestants include the self-proclaimed “smartest” man in Siam (because he thinks himself immune from the Draft Board, carrying a goldfish bowl around one leg for a “water on the knee” exemption). He is proven not so smart, as a Draft Board representative declares his water on the knee to make him a perfect candidate for the King’s navy. The richest man in Siam has so many glistening jewels, he has to be sprayed with dimmer paint to keep the glare from blinding the King. He also has the “riches” of all kinds of rationed goods and foodstuffs. But a visit from the vacuum cleaner-equipped armored car of the royal Tax Collector reduces him to nothing but a barrel to wear (fashions by Cooper). The fastest ma in Siam demonstrates his speed with the old gag from Disney’s “The Tortoise and the Hare” of performing both ends of a William Tell arrow shoot, then by dodging lightning bolts – inly to get hit by one and reduced to a charred matchstick. “He burned himself out”, chortles the King. Of course, the competition is won by the trumpet-playing “hottest man in Siam”, whose eyes turn into electric fuses that burn themselves out when he plays hot licks. Mention should also be made of the King’s daughter, whose animation was Lantz’s closest to Avery’s Little Red, and considered too hot for the kiddies to handle, keeping this film from television syndication. (Will MeTV possibly think differently (or have they already), now that the Lantz cartoons are circulating in their hands?) “Siam” was another item introduced by Spike Jones, who seems to have had the only recordings of it, on Bluebird and for Standard Transcriptions. Notably, a Victor reissue kept the song in catalog, recoupling it with “Pass the Biscuits, Mirandy” – a Walter Lantz double-header.

Abou Ben Boogie (9/18/44) contains absolutely no plot – and makes no pretense at being anything but Lantz’s attempt to do an all-out “homage” (or is the proper word, “steal”) of the night-club girl watching of Avery’s Red Hot Riding Hood). Since the film is essentially a comeback for the designs of the Princess and the fastest man in Siam, from The Greatest Man in Siam, the locale is shifted to an unknown nation in the middle East, at a night spot known as the Adobe Club (“Here’s mud in your eye”). The princess is recast as the entertainment, appearing out of a giant magic lamp, while the former fastest man appears as Abou Ben Boogie, the oriental rug cutter. No effort is made to not copy the Avery style, with wild takes galore (including Avery’s own giant-eyeball once-over of the girl), and substantially smoother and more seductive animation of the girl’s title number than anything seen in “Siam”. In fact, there are artifacts that suggest the film got in trouble with the censors (who had already required the girl to at least wear transparent harem-leggings in the prior picture), as several walk-cycles are seen only from the waist up – a likely indicator that the censors made the shots be zoomed-in upon to remove view of sensuous hip-strutting. It is surprising this film is not better-known and regarded among animation buffs for its similarities to the Avery product – something that often catches the eye when appearing in the work of other studios, such as Famous’s Sheep Shape – and, alas, may be mainly due to Universal keeping the film under wraps for so many decades. The title number, with writing credit given onscreen to Tot Seymour and Vee Lawnhurst, is an original, of which I am aware of no commercial recordings. However, the piece was published by Leeds Music, with a colorful and seductive piece of original artwork based on the film.

• “Abou Ben Boogie” is on Vimeo

Jungle Jive (5/15/44) – An essentially plotless musical vehicle, which provided the final chapter for a piano great of the big band era. Bob Zurke had come to prominence with the Bob Crosby orchestra as arranger and soloist, then formed his own short-lived big band. His luck and fame had taken a downhill turn for personal reasons by the time of this cartoon, when he had been out of the recording studio for years. This film would mark his final recording and studio session, and the title piece is his own original. He would die before the film’s release. The film is set in the Sandwich Islands (with typical puns on various kinds of edible ones). Though several of the local natives are drawn with oversize lips similar to those seen in “Scrub Me Mama” and “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”, Lantz does not repeat his past racial stereotype mistakes by portraying the natives as black cannibals, but lightens their skin several tones to make the depictions at least less controversial. The painting change worked, and the film was able to remain in TV syndication. The title number is performed by a large overweight native (is he supposed to be a tropical Fats Waller?) who tries to tickle the ivories upon a piano that washes up in a crate along with other musical instruments from a shipwreck, and a crabby crab who also turns up inside the crate, who is very particular about sharing the piano keys with anyone, and prefers to do the showing-off himself. The crab, by the way, is another loose adaptation of the classic design originated in Disney’s “Hawaiian Holiday” and then lifted by Harman and Ising for “The Little Goldfish”, though rendered in simpler stylized color in James Culhane’s usual economic and artistic style.

While the cartoon isn’t readily available online from reliable sources, a modern transcription of the music, digitally performed, has appeared, showing off a sheet-music depiction of what might have been the printed score had Universal ever chosen to publish the piece. Why was it not professionally published? Perhaps those in the music world were realistic enough to know that very few would have the talent to adequately play it.

The Beach Nut (10/16/44) returns Lee Sweetland to the mike, here providing Woody with a spirited rendition of “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean”, featuring both a line in falsetto, whistling, and colorful runs of octave scales. The film provides a landmark, as the first appearance of Woody’s most durable foil, Wally Walrus, whose peaceful day at the beach is destroyed by Woody’s utter chaos – running him down with a surfboard, setting fire to his beach umbrella, and posing as a fake swami fortune teller at the amusement pier. Wally ties him to an anchor, and tosses it into the sea. However, he forgets to untie the other end of the rope from a weight-supporting post of the pier. The entire pier collapses, dropping Walrus and all members of an onlooking crowd into the drink, just as Woody comes up unharmed. The film closes with everyone dog-paddling to chase Woody out to sea. SONG: “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean” The Leake County Revelers performed an early electrical version on Columbia. An anonymous acoustic side also appeared by the “Harmony String Orchestra.” Baritone Stuart Robertson included it in a medley on an HMV Red Seal release with male chorus. Ella Logan performed “My Bonnie…” for Brunswick. Ella Fitzgerald and Glen Gray would each issue Decca sides. Cliff Briner’s Texas Wanderers also waxed a Decca side, giving it the Western Swing style. The Hoosier Hot Shots would issue a Melotone side, making it one of their unique novelty pieces with added comedy repartee. Irv Carroll and his Orchestra issued a Bluebird side, probably in swing style. It received Dixieland treatment on a MacGregor transcription by the Sextette From Hunger. A very old-tyme sounding accordion version appeared by Jimmy Shand’s band on Parlophone. An odd conga-beat version was released in the 50’s by Martinas and His Music for British Columbia. Harry Blons’ Dixieland Band included it on an Audiophile 12″ microgroove hi-fi 78. The Living Guitars tried a rock rendition for RCA in 1964. Freddy Quinn (I cannot determine on what label) performs it absolutely straight and sentimental, as the song was no doubt intended to be heard, on a stereo LP. James Last also plays it fairly straight on a Polydor LP, but adds a little syncopation. Here’s a fun clip with Alvino Rey and his singing guitar:

To be continued…