![\"My_Pal_Paul_1930_02_silhouette\"](\"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/My_Pal_Paul_1930_02_silhouette.jpg\")
\nThe fact that he was such a large man, had such a narrow head (complete with double chin) and a pencil-thin mustache made him the object of caricature. <\/p>\n
When Whiteman switched from Victor records to the Columbia label in 1928, Columbia gave his records a special, multi-color label that must have been expensive to design and produce. To all record-collectors, these discs are known a “potato-head” Whiteman records. (The label was even replicated for Australian issues–but not for the British ones.)<\/p>\n Even Disney couldn’t resist the temptation to allude to Whiteman. In Music Land<\/em> (subject of a recent breakdown<\/a>, and a favorite cartoon among record-collectors–as with cartoon fans in general), the King of the “Isle of Jazz” is shown as a baritone sax (an instrument that Whiteman often featured in his orchestrations), with the general facial features (and pencil-thin mustache) of Whiteman. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Usually, spoofs of Whiteman were only parts of a larger cartoon–not the entire reason for the cartoon to exist. In Bandmaster<\/em> (1931), a Krazy Kat cartoon from the Charles Mintz stable, K. K. dons a Whiteman mask to lead his village band into a performance of “Twelfth Street Rag”–which also also allows him to spoof Ted Lewis (“The High-Hatted Tragedian of Jazz”), who was another occasional target of animated japery. <\/p>\n From the Krazy Kat “Bandmaster” (1931)<\/p><\/div>Other studios were there to do their own takeoffs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In Croon Crazy<\/em> (1933), Cubby Bear finds he has to imitate “Sol Wrightman” when he gets the telegram that the artistes he’d been expecting for his radio revue (sponsored by the McHangnail Cuticle Company) could not make it. A Whiteman mask, and he leads the pneumatically-powered one-man band in sixteen bars of lively music. <\/p>\n From The Cubby Bear “Croon Crazy”<\/p><\/div>This cartoon is also notable for the presence of “Red” McKenzie on the soundtrack. “Red” scats over the titles, and sings the first chorus of “I Can Croon ‘Neath The Moon”, the cartoon’s theme song. “Red”, former kazoo-player with the Mound City Blue Blowers, had, in fact, sung with Whiteman the year before this cartoon was made.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n (Incidentally, it’s interesting to compare Croon Crazy<\/em><\/a> with the contemporary Merrie Melodies short, I’ve Got To Sing A Torch Song<\/em><\/a>. Both cartoons have running gags about time-signals, and both devolve into strings of gags based on radio and its personalities.)<\/p>\n MGM’s “Toyland Broadcast”<\/p><\/div>Over at M-G-M, Harman and Ising did their takeoff on the King of Jazz in Toyland Broadcast<\/em><\/a>, in the form of a bobo-clown (one of those weighted dolls that always stays upright), who directs the wind-up “Sambo Jazz Band” in a performance of “The Wedding OF The Painted Doll” one of the hits from “The Broadway Melody” (1929), one of M-G-M’s valuable copyrights.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Even though Paul Whiteman had gone through some valiant dieting in order to woo and win actress Margaret Livingstone, the image of the big, fat bandleader with the potato-head and the pencil-thin mustache lingered for some years. <\/p>\n And over at Termite Terrace, the Warner Brothers animators had their fun, as well. <\/p>\n![\"whiteman-label\"](\"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/whiteman-label.jpg\")
<\/a>In fact, his organization started that ball rolling, without any outside impetus. <\/p>\n\n<\/a>