The Voice Above The Apron: Lillian Randolph
Ever since the 1930s African American vocal artist Lillian Randolph sang when performing for animated cartoons as a domestic servant.
Category Archives: Christopher P. Lehman
“Scrub Me Mama With A Boogie Beat” (1941)
This year marks the seventieth anniversary of Universal Pictures withdrawing Walter Lantz’s cartoon Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat from distribution.
The Bronze Age 2
By looking at 1972 month by month, it becomes clear just how transitional the year was in moving animation from the Silver Age to the Bronze Age.
Rankin-Bass “The Jackson 5ive”
The Jackson Five tried to attract viewers to music as well as to the half-hour stories. Each episode of the 1971-72 season featured two recordings from the group’s albums.
Jasper and The Puppetoons – Part 5
Paramount Pictures released the last of the “Puppetoons” in 1947. Of the five releases, only one stars Jasper – and another featured Duke Ellington.
The George Pal Puppetoons and Jasper – Part 4
In 1946 Jasper recieved an Academy Award nomination – and one of Pal’s Puppetoons was an animated adaptation of the American folktale, John Henry.
Jasper and the Puppetoons – Part 3
“Jasper Goes Hunting” provided another first for George Pal – an animated short combining major characters from two competing Hollywood studios.
Puppetoons and Jasper – part 2
In 1943 Paramount Pictures realized that it had a popular hit character in producer/director George Pal’s animated African American figure “Jasper”.
The “Jasper” Puppetoons – Part 1
Jasper was part of a tradition in animation of casting African American boys as stars of series—from “Sammy Johnsin” in the Silent Era to L’il EIghtball from producer Walter Lantz.
Disney, ABC… and Segregation
In the 1950s Walt Disney agreed to produce the Disneyland television series for ABC – and whenever Disney released a new film, he often arranged for an ABC-Paramount theatre to premiere it.
