Certainly by the beginning of calendar year 1935, Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising found the mojo they had been seeking ever since they left Warner Brothers. They were trying to duplicate the charm that people were associating with Walt Disney’s cartoons. Efforts to force that kind of charm would prove to be as obvious as farmyard dirt on a gingham gown. But the suits at Loew’s Incorporated seem to have been quite satisfied with the quality, although the budgets were being strained. Eventually, this would come to a head. But when three-strip Technicolor became available, Harman and Ising used the full palette to what they thought was the best advantage. These cartoons proved to be effective accompaniment to such MGM blockbusters as “Mutiny on the Bounty” and “A Tale of Two Cities”.
When the Cat’s Away (2/16/35) – A female pussy cat leaves the comfortable hearth for the love songs of a tomcat on the backyard fence. An “adorable” mouse (call him a prototype of Harman and Ising’s soon-to-be character, Little Cheezer) takes the opportunity to shut a hinged window behind her, them calls out his fellow rodents to frolic in the kitchen during the feline’s absence. The mice eat everything in sight, and even get into whiskey kegs for a “chaser”. More species get into the act, including a Latin Rumba number for dancing cockroaches. But when a large rat horns in and tries to grab off the mouse’s girlfriend, the mouse finds himself in definite need of reinforcements. Enter the cat, returned from her night of wooing. She chases the rat back to his hole in the wall, her claws only able to grab away the rat’s oversized trousers. The mice all make the safety of their own hole, but the little mouse risks emerging from the hole to drag over a bowl of milk to the cat as a reward, before finally returning to his own home. Songs: “When the Cat’s Away”, an origial for narrating chorus, “Little Brown Jug” (with specialty lyrics). “Three Blind Mice” (played an an inebriated tempo when the mice imbibe), and “La Cucaracha”.
The Lost Chick (3/9/35) – Mother hen is sitting on her eggs, anticipating a family. She has taken the tine to handwrite their names on the shells. One Eggbert rolls out of the nest, and is retrieved by two adorable squirrels, who think it’s a nut, and nothing else but. They are not all that interested in gathering a load of nuts for winter, and think they have found the easy answer to foraging with the one giant “nut”, which they think will last all winter. Eggbert instead hatches in the warmth of the hearth. When Mother hen finally notices her egg is missing, she goes out to retrieve it, and discovers the squirrels in a compromising position with Eggbert, trying to expel popcorn from his gullet. She thinks they’ve been mistreating him, and takes Eggbert home, just as winter sets in. The squirrels, without sustenance, wander into the snow-covered forest in search of a basket of smaller nuts they had thrown away, but collapse in the snow. Eggbert meanwhile informs Mama that the squirrels were his friends, and Mama braves the storm to locate the squirrels, bringing them home with her to stay forever as her guests. Songs: “We Told You So”, an original, taunting refrain by a trio of squirrels who think they know better about the egg.
The Calico Dragon (3/30/35) – A little girl is reading a storybook about knights in shining armor, and imagines the scenario playing out in a world upon her bed, against the backdrop of her sheets and blankets. The title character, villain of the piece, is three headed, the middle one producing a tongue that gives the razz to anybody, like a New Year’s Eve unrolling party favor. He presides over a castle of red flannel underwear, and is battled by the girl’s dolls (a knight, horse, and Scotty dog). The girl awakens from her dream to discover that she herself is the princess the dolls were rescuing, but is frightened back under the covers when a breeze at the windowshade produces the same “razz” sound she heard from the dragon’s tongue. Songs: Von Suppe’s “Light Cavalry Overture”, Strauss’s “Blue Danube Waltz”, and several originals – “The Knights of Old Were Not So Bold/Off to the Fray” and “I’m the Calico Dragon”, a number that in some respects seems inspired by a popular concert specialty by John Charles Thomas, “The Green-Eyed Dragon”.
Good Little Monkeys (4/13/35) – Normally, you’d expect a “midnight in a book shop” cartoon to come from Warner Brothers. But the ex-Warner men transport the format to MGM. A copy of Dante’s Inferno opens on a dark and stormy night, and the Devil comes out. Satan scampers about the place, coming across a knick-knack of the three little monkeys, whom the devil hopes to corrupt. No such luck for old scratch, who winds up being chased back into his book by The Three Musketeers, a herd of elephants and a yelling Tarzan, and assorted others. The monkeys are not willing to be corrupted, and repeat the “See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil” creed in a recurring original song, which became their theme for all subsequent pictures. Other songs include “The Peanut Vendor”, and an unidentified shimmy number for a harem dancing girl.
The Chinese Nightingale (4/27/35) – This cartoon, based on a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, spends about five minutes of scene-setting and exposition before reaching its plot, filled with eye candy and Chinoiserie. An emperor becomes very much fond of the songs of a nightingale. However, there comes a time when the nightingale has to leave the Emperor’s court, when the Emperor begins paying more attention to a mechanical wind-up bird brought to him as a gift from a foreign land, leaving the nightingale feeling ignored and unwanted. Only when the mechanical toy breaks down does the Emperor take note of the live bird’s absence, and falls into despair and illness. An alert is brought by way of another palace bird to the nightingale, in her new home with a new family, and she packs up nest and belongings to bring the whole family back to the Emperor, for a happy reunion that restores the Emperor to health. Songs: one we’ll call simply “The Chinese Nightingale”, an expository song sung by a trio of Chinese girls before a pictorial screen depicting chapters of the story. “Happy Days are Here Again” is heard in the happy reunion at the close of the film. Also, excerpts from Dvorak’s “Symphony No. 9 in E Minor (‘New World’)”.
Poor Little Me (5/11/35) – Almost all the woodland creatures are frolicking in the woods, There is one wallflower – a little skunk, who identifies himself as “Stinky”. He is all alone, as none of the other creatures will play with him. He runs back home, where mother leads the family in a special-lyric version of “Jesus Loves Me” (reworded as “Mother Loves Me”), but ths does not console Stinky. Stinky finally makes a temporary friend of a young female bunny with a head cold who cannot smell – but the friendship is rudely interrupted by the advances of a ferocious bobcat. The bobcat, however, is stopped cold by Stinky’s smell – but finds it can be neutralized with a spritz of perfume from an atomizer found in a junk pile. Stinky is almost caught, but makes the gate of his home one step ahead of the bobcat. Mama skink stands her ground, and nothing can neutralize the aroma of her and the entire skunk family. Stinky finally resigns himself to happily staying within the family fold, for a singing iris out. Songs: “I Ain’t Got Nobody”. “I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You”, written in 1930 by Sam Theard, recorded for Vocalion by him as “Lovin’ Sam from Down In ‘Bam”. Most popularly, it was recorded in 1931 by Louis Armstrong on Okeh, and also by Luis Rissell on Victor, Cab Calloway on Brunswick, Jack Teagarden on Columbia with Fats Waller, Chick Bullock on Perfect, Baner, Oriole and Conqueror, the Connie’s Inn Orchestra (Fletcher Henderson) on Melotone, and remade on Crown. An original number, “I’ve Got a Code in My Dose” (not to be confused with a 1929 song of the same title. Also, “Jesus Loves Me”, most recordings of which seem to be on children’s labels, with the exception of George Beverly Shea on Singspiration.
Barnyard Babies (5/25/35) – Blessed events are happening all over the barnyard, and Mr. and Mrs. Rooster are expecting such an event. The barnyard is holding a better baby contest (these sort of things were a testament to the belief some people had in the pseudo-science of eugenics). Trouble is, the rooster family’s brood isn’t due until two days after the contest. This leads pop and Mom to all kinds of drastic measures to speed up the process (including putting mama and the whole nest in the oven). The hatchlings arrive in the nick of time to take the prize, landing in the loving cup. Songs: “We Are Barnyard Babies”, a choral original for the contest participants, and “My Pony Boy”.
The Old Plantation (9/21/35) – The running time of ths film, like several of this period, is LONG – so long, you’d figure the footage was running off the reel. But then, this was the studio’s debut of three-strip Technicolor, so cause for celebration. MGM’s cartoons never had a formal “censored 11″, but if they did, this would probably be one of them. Politically incorrect cartoon which starts out as a lampoon of Uncle Tom’s Cabin without the pointed satire of a Tex Avery romp. In a world entirely populated by dolls and mechanical toys, Colonel Julep’s spring-wound stallion Black Beauty must win a race to avoid foreclosure of the mortgage upon his plantation home by villainous Simon Degree. The race horse sequence features a parody of track announcer Graham McNamee (referred to here as “Graham Cracker”), the best known broadcaster of horse races on NBC, and also Ed Wynn’s foil on his popular Texaco radio show. Simon pilfers the mainspring from Black Beauty’s frame, leaving the deice powerless. Substitution by Black Beauty’s jockey of various forms of fireworks becomes necessary, sometimes with unexpected results, leading to a mash-up of ideas previously used in Warner’s “Up’s ‘n’ Downs”. Beauty wins by a neck, its head popping off upon a spring to round the stretch just in time. Songs: a number of Stephen Foster favorites, including “My Old Kentucky Home”, “Camptown Races”, and one we haven’t encountered before, “Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming”, recorded by the Peerless Quartet on early Victor, John McCormack for Victrola red seal, the Neapolitan Trio on Victor black label, The Shannon Four on Silvertone (possibly drawn from Federal), Theo Karle on Brunswick, and in numerous Stephen Foster Medleys for various labels.
Next Time: 1935-36
James Parten has overcome a congenital visual disability to be acknowledged as an expert on the early history of recorded sound. He has a Broadcasting Certificate (Radio Option) from Los Angeles Valley College, class of 1999. He has also been a fan of animated cartoons since childhood.
Some great cartoons with great musical scores this week. “Tales of the Vienna Woods” is barely a step above an Iwerks cartoon, but here we see Harman and Ising starting to come into their own.
In Japan, the three wise monkeys are known by traditional names. One of the central tenets of the Tendai sect of Buddhism is “Mizaru, Kikazaru, Iwazaru,” or don’t see, don’t hear, and don’t speak (evil). The archaic negative imperative verb ending -zaru is equivalent to the combination form of the noun “saru”, meaning “monkey”; for this reason, monkeys have been used to illustrate these precepts for hundreds of years. (Sometimes there’s a fourth monkey with his arms folded, Shizaru, or “do no evil.”) A frieze depicting the three wise monkeys at the famous 17th-century shrine complex in Nikko is immensely popular with tourists. Of course, the gift shops in Nikko are full of wise monkeys souvenirs, from cheap plastic ones to expensive cast bronzes like the one I bought for my wife (who was born in the year of the monkey).
The “Black Beauty” gag in “Good Little Monkeys” would later be used by Bob Clampett in “A Coy Decoy” (1941).
The excerpt from Dvorak’s New World Symphony in “The Chinese Nightingale” is the opening theme of the second movement (Largo), where it’s played by the solo English horn. One of Dvorak’s former students, William Arms Fisher, furnished original lyrics to that melody to create the quasi-spiritual “Goin’ Home”, later recorded by Paul Robeson, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and many others. That’s the joke in the cartoon: “Goin’ Home” is heard when the nightingale is returning to the emperor’s palace, just as “There is a Tavern in the Town” (“Fare thee well, for I must leave thee….”) was sung by the vocal trio when the nightingale departed from it.
Antonin Dvorak spent three years in the United States as director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York. Just as he had been influenced by the Czech folk music of his native country, he took a keen interest in American folk music and was especially taken with African-American spirituals. Dvorak had at least two African-American students, Harry Burleigh and Will Marion Cook, who went on to distinguished careers in music; it was Burleigh, later a renowned baritone, who introduced Dvorak to spirituals. It’s been speculated that the melody from the Largo movement in the New World Symphony may have been taken from an authentic spiritual that is now lost, but there’s no evidence for that. Be that as it may, many people have considered “Goin’ Home” a genuine spiritual, and it can even be found in the hymnals of some churches.
The stereotypical toys depicted in “The Old Plantation” were commonplace at one time. I’ve heard it said that the purpose of such toys was to teach white children at an early age that African-Americans were theirs to control and manipulate; there may be something to this. Many antique stores, especially in the South, will have a display cabinet containing these toys in an out-of-the-way corner of the shop. I’ll never forget coming across one such cabinet, wherein, among all the mammies and golliwogs, was a Jesse Jackson for President ’88 campaign button!
I know it’s a bit late to point this out, but you forgot to name the music that appears in the title cards at the beginning of the Aesop’s Fables cartoons “Bughouse College Days” and “The Mill Pond”.
Would it be possible to give me the names of these tunes please?
Incidentally, the music that accompanies the frolicking animals at the beginning of “Poor Little Me” is the Ballet No. 2 from Franz Schubert’s incidental music to the play “Rosamunde”. “Rosamunde” also happens to be the original German title of the song that has been translated into English as “Beer Barrel Polka” (“Roll out the barrel….”), but Schubert didn’t write that one.
There are many alternate versions of “Jesus Loves Me”. I remember one that went around during the Vietnam War:
“Lyndon loves me, this I know,
For my draft board tells me so.
Little ones to him belong.
They must fight the Viet Cong.”
Such lush cartoons! That’s all I can say about these. These were my first forays into enjoying classic animation on television. I still like these today and would love to collect them someday on home media, other than laser disk. The laser set is amazing; if you were lucky enough to snag this, well, you know what I mean. The antics in this series get more frantic as the series goes on. Right now they’re mired in Walt Disney type of cuteness, but believe me, this gets crazy. The happy harmonies certainly benefits from the fact that these cartoons were scored by full orchestras. As you notice, unlike the Warner Brothers, Looney Tunes, or Merrie Melodies, there were no or almost no popular tunes apparent in these cartoons. They actually went to the chore of writing for each of these cartoons. Of course, occasionally the little popular tune would show up, and we will see as the series goes on that there were even some, interesting, jazz recordings here, but most times they were produced specifically for the cartoon.
Is it any wonder The Calico Dragon got nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short that year? Frankly, it’s one of the better shorts in this week’s Up-Roar.
The early Happy Harmonies clearly show a vast budget increase from the Harman-Ising Warner Bros. cartoons, but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily better. They improved considerably over time, but they were always darker and more heavy-handed than their Disney or Warner counterparts, even–particularly–when they were going for cute. Still, they’re fascinating, elaborate cartoons. The laser disc set was a good collection, so why aren’t they out on DVD?
As for “Old Plantation,” perhaps its political incorrectness is assuaged at least a bit by depicting the Black characters as capable underdogs (or underdolls in this case), the ones you root for. But of course it’s more fun to be offended.
These deserve to be restored and released through Warner Archive. They show the same care and attention as the classic movies Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer were producing at the same time.
Interesting observations about The Old Plantation. I feel as in the original novel we’re definitely supposed to be supporting the African American characters rather than lagging at them. They maybe unfortunately depicted but as we know this was common place at the time. It’s a favourite character of mine, with great animation and lovely characters.
Another tune used in “The Old Plantation:” after Simon sabotages Black Beauty, he whistles a bit of the folk song “The Old Gray Mare [Just Ain’t What She Used to Be”].
Has anyone mentioned that a large musical role in these cartoons was played by the young William Hanna. He had been at Harman-Ising’s Hollywood Boulevard set-up from 1931, when the studio was producing the early Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies for Warner release. Hanna contributed song lyrics and novelty compositions (he had been musically trained since childhood). He went with Hugh and Rudy to MGM, and continued making contributions to the music in each Happy Harmony. Hanna composed originals like the twice-used “See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil” monkey trio song. He contributed musical stuff to virtually all the Harmonies, and continued composing novelty songs and lyrics for his first co-directing assignment in the 1936 cartoon To Spring. Of course he was still contributing words and music years later when the early Hanna-Barbera TV shows had those sung chorus openings, like Ruff and Reddy, Huckleberry Hound and so on. He also did the Happy Anniversary song for the season one Flintstones installment “The Hot Piano,” and sang in the chorus…he was a barbershop quartet singer too. For anyone who wants some extra info on the music and uncredited voices in these early Harman-Ising films, my 2-volume book CARTOON VOICES OF THE GOLDEN AGE is recommended (I immodestly hasten to add).
If I may notice something; all of the cartoons posted have a “Leo, the Lion” with a distinctive…AND SCARY roar. The lion used in all but one of the toons was named Coffee who starts with a snarl, then goes full on ROAR scaring perhaps half the audience if they saw these cartoons in the theater!
Coffee would be used during the two-strip color era including shorts and cartoons.
The last opening roar from The Old Plantation, came from the iconic Tanner who would be used in the later MGM cartoons including ones starring Tom and Jerry, Droopy and Barney Bear. But, instead of his roar, Coffee’s is dubbed in.
I have memories of watching some of these shorts late at night on Cartoon Network or Boomerang, usually as part of some programming block dedicated to the MGM cartoons that weren’t by Tex Avery or Hanna and Barbera. I don’t know why I remember specifically these, but I imagine they must’ve been good programming filler for the network at the time.
Looking back at them again it’s easy to see why Harman & Ising were able to successfully compete against Disney’s Silly Symphonies while other competitors either faded away (like Iwerks or Van Beuren) or developed their own identity away from cutesy stuff (Schlesinger’s Merry Melodies being the best example) – they had the production values, studio talent, and competitive drive to improve their craft while the others were content just imitating whatever Disney was up to two or three years ago. Granted, Happy Harmonies didn’t catch much critical acclaim as the years went on and watching multiple of them in a row is considered draining for a good reason, but they helped establish MGM’s legacy in pioneering animation and when they’re good, they’re REALLY good!
In the early 1980s, Ted Turner’s SuperStation WTCG in Atlanta (later WTBS) began broadcasting MGM Happy Harmonies during weekday afternoon showings of (Turner-controlled) vintage theatrical cartoons. One day I tuned in and “The Chinese Nightingale” aired, in beautiful 2-tone Technicolor* glory! I had never seen it before, and was completely blown away… I waited many weeks for it to run again, so I could tape it off the cable signal onto a blank VHS tape, “for keeps”. It was, and remains, one of my all-time favorite MGM cartoons. *Speaking of Technicolor, one of the strange things I recall about those color MGMs on the SuperStation at that time – they often had the word “Technicolor” SCRATCHED OFF the actual film itself, frame-by-frame, by someone’s hand long ago – completely obliterating it from the prints’ opening credits, which resulted in a bizarre, squiggly black mess where the word “Technicolor” had previously been. What the hell was that all about?