One could assume that by the number of Screen Song titles released during 1949-50, they were either popular with the public and distributors, or possibly with the Paramount brass, who may have seen them as a way to issue a substantial amount of product quickly and cheaply. Songs primarily tended to remain those old chestnuts that would linger in older audiences’ memories, even if the moppets at whom the films were aimed had never heard the songs before. We can only imagine the din in the average theater, as each patron tried to sing along, in their own respective chosen key.
Marriage Wows (8/19/49) – Not to be confused with the Fleischer Talkartoon of the same title, which has yet to surface in collector’s hands. It is unknown what similarities the two like titles may have had between them – however, the connection to Fleischer was not lost, even if unrelated to the early sound production, as a substantial number of gags and scenarios in this film are lifted straight out of Fleischer’s Bunny-Mooning. The only difference is setting wedding day in the jungle, rather than in a forest. The groom, an elephant voiced by Jackson Beck, urges us to sing loud and follow his heart – which actually doesn’t show up so well against the background. Songs: Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March”, the “Bridal Chorus” from Lohengrin, and most notably, “For Me and My Gal”, an old song from 1917, which had seen service in the not too distant past as the title number for a memorable Gene Kelly/Judy Garland pairing. Van and Schenck had recorded it for Victor in 1917. Joseph C. Smith’s Orchestra also performed a dance version on Victor. In the 1940’s, Decca released a Judy Garland/Gene Kelly version in connection with the feature that became a considerable hit. Arthur Godfrey would also issue a Columbia version, as the flip side of his biggest hit, “Too Fat Polka”.
The Big Flame Up (12/30/49) – Spot gags built around fire-fighting. Anthropomorphic flames battle the fire fighters trying to put them out. A fireball leads the sing-along. The finale finds the firehouse burnt to a crisp. Songs: “There’ll Be a Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight” is revisited, but with new, cleaned-up lyrics that remove all questionable “minstrel show” style ethnic references (making it more palatable to sing along with than the 1930 Fleischer version). Also, sizable portions of “The Merry Wives of Windsor” overture.
The Big Drip (11/23/49) – Noah’s Ark gets the Screen Song treatment. The Miracle Weather Bureau (“If we predict the weather right, it’s a Miracle”) comes up with a prediction of 40 days of rain via the score of a pinball-machine predictor. This prompts the building of a jungle ark. Lots of construction gags using jungle animals (giraffes as cranes, elephants throwing their weight around to produce curved beams out of straight planks, etc. ) Then comes the storm (one cloud with a tap installed, one with its base opened up with a can opener). At the end, the flood water is disposed of by pulling out a king-size bathtub plug, setting the ark down atop the Paramount mountain (a shot excised from all television prints). Songs: “William Tell Overture: The Storm”, and the featured number, “It Ain’t Gonna Rain No Mo’”, introduced by Wendell Hall (The Red Headed-Music Maker), recorded by him at least three times, for Victor, Edison, and Gennett. There were at least two sequels recorded by Hall – a Part 2 and Part 3, recorded on Victor. It was covered by Billy Jones and Ernest Hare on Columbia. Dance versions appeared by the International Novelty Orchestra on Victor, and the Original Memphis Five on Columbia.
Shortnin’ Bread (3/23/50) – There’s a celebration going on at Ye Olde Bake Shoppe (”More Dough For Your Money”) – This is Famous Studios’ belated answer ro such 1930’s goodies as The Cookie Carnival. We get a “Napoleon” with the typical emperor hat, the death-defying act of Danny Doughnut (a high dive into a cup of coffee), and a high-wire act for The Three Cookies, which ends disastrously with them falling, taken away on a stretcher as a pile of crumbs. Songs: the title number, a song with lyrics written in Southern dialect, which became associated with Nelson Eddy, who used it as an encore. He recorded the piece on Columbia, in a studio-version single, as well as its inclusion within a release as an album set of the entire soundtrack of his segment from Disney’s Make Mine Music, “The Whale Who Wanted To Sing At the Met”). A 1930’s scroll Victor version had been recorded by another operatic baritone, Conrad Thibault (from whose performance Nelson was probably inspired to pick up the piece). In 1937, the Andrews Sisters also cut a version for Decca. Fats Waller would perform it on Bluebird. Dan Belloc performed a band version on Dot in the 1950’s. Etta (billed as “Miss Peaches”) James would record “Shortnin’ Bread Rock” in the 1950’s for Modern, which rendition was covered in England by Tony Crombie and his Rockets on Columbia.
Win, Place, and Show Boat (4/29/50) – Spot gags about show boats that used to ply the Mississippi river. The film plays on romanticized images of such boats, although those who worked on them often thought of them as glorified scows. An elephant inconveniences a row of passengers by rising from his seat and begging pardon. When he gets to where he’s going, he tips the boat, sending several patrons overboard into the drink. This eventually leads to the other characters in the row ganging up on him, leaving him in a mess of splintered seats. Acts include a flea circus, a frog with a frog in his throat (with another frog inside, and another, leading to a quartet of singing), and Hercules Hippo, a strong man whose act leaves a big impression on the stage. Songs: themes from the “Jolly Robbers Overture” and “Light Cavalry Overture”, Golden Slippers”, and the featured number, “Waitin’ For the Robert E. Lee”, a 1912 song, recorded by Dolly Connolly on Columbia, and the Heidelberg Quintet with Billy Murray on Victor, Al Jolson performed a version for Decca. Eddie “Piano” Miller revived it on Rainbow records. Ben Light performed it on Capitol, Del Wood also tinkled the ivories to it on Tennessee records. Dean Martin included it as an album cut on the Capitol LP “Swingin’ Down Yonder”. A spirited late revival was recorded by Shari Lewis on her first Golden Records album, “Hi Kids!”, performed wonderfully in the Southern-fried voice of Hush Puppy, with accompaniment by Jimmy Carroll’s orchestra.
Jingle Jangle Jungle (5/19/50) – Spot gags about Africa and its denizens, both human and animal. Topics include cannibals, wild birds and animals, the Kimberley Diamond Fields, the Cape of Good Hope (allowing for a reference to studio mainstay Bob Hope), crocodile-infested rivers, and a lion who is reluctant to sign on the dotted line to join a circus. He is tricked to come to America, and ends up in a cage with the ringmaster – bit not for long, as the ringmaster is forced to share his space – from the inside. Songs: “Thanks For the Memory” (for the “Hope” gag), and the featured song, “Civilization (Bongo Bongo Bongo).” The hit on the number went to Louis Prima on RCA Victor. Capitol covered it with Jack Smith, while Columbia gave it to Woody Herman. Majestic issued Ray McKinley, while Decca eventually gave it to Danny Kaye and the Andrews Sisters.
Heap Hep Injuns (6/30/50) – Spot gags about native Americans, dealing with such tropes as chief Rain in the Face, war paint, and suddenly-rich tribes from discovery of oil, who set up teepees inside their mansions. Song: “My Pony Boy”, a 1909 “Indian” song, recorded for Columbia by the Peerless Quartet, and for Victor by Ada Jones. It did get touched later by the kiddie labels in the 1950’s (including but radio narrator Jack Arthur (“Grand Central Station”) in a singing cowboy medley on Peter Pan), and may have been included in a Homer and Jethro medley for RCA. Here’s a 1953 Golden Record by Anne Lloyd, The Sandpipers, with Mitch Miller And Orchestra.
Gobs of Fun (7/7/50) – A mouse that looks a lot like Herman, but doesn’t have his personality, is the captain of a ship, whose entire crew has deserted him for the pleasures of a dockside tavern. The mouse sees the notice of resignation left for him, chews it up as if to say “Oh, yeah”, enters the tavern and throws all crew members out the door and back aboard ship. From there, it’s typical spot gags on sailor life, including the crew blowing en masse upon the sails to get them going. Songs: “Strike Up the Band (Here Comes a Sailor)”, a song previously visited only as an alternate theme for Popeye in his first appearance in the Fleischer days. A heretofore-unnoticed early recording of the piece has turned up on Youtube from 1900 by Billy Heins on etched Zonophone.
Next Week: A Spook-tacular!
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.
My mother-in-law had a recording of Paul Robeson singing “Short’nin’ Bread”. He lent the ditty a sense of gravitas all out of proportion to what it deserves.
No discussion of “Short’nin’ Bread” is complete without mentioning that it was the favourite song of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. He recorded it many times, although only one version found its way onto a commercial recording. The others remain locked away in the archives alongside Wilson’s collaborations with Charles Manson and thousands of hours of other crap.
Wilson’s obsession with “Short’nin’ Bread” has been documented by many individuals. Micky Dolenz recounted in his autobiography that when he, John Lennon and Harry Nilsson were dropping acid at Wilson’s house, the Beach Boy sat at the piano and tapped out “Short’nin’ Bread” on the keyboard over and over for hours on end. Alex Chilton used to get telephone calls from Wilson in the middle of the night, imploring him to record “Short’nin’ Bread”; Wilson maintained that Chilton had the perfect voice for it. At one music industry party, Wilson tried to organise a celebrity sing-along of “Short’nin’ Bread” (“Just follow the bouncing beach ball!”) and was very upset when the guests refused to take part. Iggy Pop stormed out, declaring: “This guy is nuts!”
It’s a shame Wilson didn’t try to pull that stunt in the mid-1980s. He might have produced a celebrity fundraising album to send short’nin’ bread to the victims of the Ethiopian famine.
Think about that the next time you hear someone call Brian Wilson a “genius”.
By the way, I figured out that “Short’nin’ Bread” can be sung in counterpoint with “Good Vibrations”, if you transpose it up a tone every four bars. Oooo-wee-yee-yoooo….
“Good Vibrations” is “Shortnin’ Bread” in counterpoint.
Dude, you just ruined my childhood.
Is there something that documents how popular these “Screen Song” were with audiences? Because I have a hard time imagining people in the late forties and early fifties still singing along to these.
i would assume theater patrons sat in stony silence during the bouncing ball segment, as with the “gags” portion of the cartoon.
I also really wonder about the same question. In the thirties, in the first ten years of sound films, sure. But late forties early fifties? Maybe just the older people who experienced the first wave of them would feel inclined to sing along. But would they actually sing? I’d think the young people in the audience would think their elders were nuts.
I’ve attended many screenings where a Fleischer Screen Song was sung along with gladly by the audience. Those cartoons utilize the Paramount music library and contract players, and many are just as inventive as anything else Fleischer did in the period. The Famous Screen Songs are dreck, like anything else Famous did in that period. (The only saving grace is some interesting experimentation in layout/design by Al Eugster, who took on directing most of the Screen Songs precisely *for* that reason – to escape the studio’s stable of characters he hated.) They were sold as a substitute for a blank screen, and anyone programming them in modern times would probably have to fear being run out of the venue.
What even compelled Paramount to revive the series anyways (aside cheapness)? I know “When GI Johnny Comes Marching Home” was among the first of the bunch and I CAN imagine people singing along to that short in particular, but only because the war was over, everyone was in a good mood and the cartoon was about soldiers returning home from service. But all the other stuff has no reason to exist, really.
Paramount constantly threatened to shut down the studio several times in the 40s and 50s, One time when Paramount was threatening to shut the studio(in about 1946), the heads of Famous proposed a revival of the Fleischer short series to deliver shorts on budget that were somewhat cheaper than the other cartoons. This managed to save the studio from yet another shutdown attempt. It wasn’t helped by the fact that unlike WB and MGM which had minimal executive interference(thanks to WB directors actually allowed to be more creative and usually ignoring many of Seltzers notes) Directors like Al Eugster and Dave Tendlar were far more restricted by corporate on what they were allowed to do. not helped by outdated views by the management.
I enjoyed the recording of “Civilization” sung by Louis Prima, whose voice I first heard in Disney’s “The Jungle Book”. By coincidence, “Civilization” was the final track on Disney’s super groovy album of songs from that movie, sung (I presume) by Thurl Ravenscroft.