Swamp frogs celebrate a wedding.Swamp frogs celebrate a wedding.Swamp frogs celebrate a wedding.
Basin Street Boys
- Vocalists
- (uncredited)
Ben Carter
- Bill Robinson
- (uncredited)
Harland Evans
- Louie Armstrong
- (uncredited)
- …
The Four Blackbirds
- Vocalists
- (uncredited)
Scott Whitaker
- Cab Calloway
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Hugh Harman(uncredited)
- Writers
- Jonathan Caldwell(uncredited)
- William Hanna
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaFats Waller, Bill Robinson, Cab Calloway, Ethel Waters, Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong, Stepin Fetchit, The Boswell Sisters, and The Mills Brothers are caricatured.
- ConnectionsReferenced in Little Ol' Bosko and the Cannibals (1937)
Featured review
Further proof that the cartoons of the 1930s were generally a sorry lot.
Apart from Disney, the cartoon shorts from the 1930s were often a dreadful lot. The best of the non-Disney shorts were the Fleischers with Betty Boop and Popeye--but repetitive plots make the Popeye shorts a bit hard to take in large doses. As for the rest, well, they weren't all that good because they lacked an important element- -fun. Unlike the funny cartoons of the 40s and 50s, these films generally emphasized cutesy characters and singing...just the sort of stuff folks hate today. And, one of the worst offenders was the team of Harmon and Ising, who'd worked for both Warner Brothers and MGM...and "Swing Wedding" is one of their films.
The cartoon consists of lots of frogs in the swamp all acting very much like giant stereotypes of blacks. Some were imitations of famous jazz musicians like Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway (the frog getting married in this musical) but the most egregious one was a Steppin Fetchit lookalike. If you don't remember Fetchit, this is because very few of his films air today because his depiction of a stupid, lazy black man is demeaning and awful. More awful is the jazz frog injecting himself with drugs--a stereotype of jazz musicians of the day that, sadly, had a grain of truth.
Oveall, not as cutesy as the typical Harmon-Ising film but to make up for that, it's rather racist and offensive. Not a fine film by any standard except for the quality of the animation, which is excellent.
The cartoon consists of lots of frogs in the swamp all acting very much like giant stereotypes of blacks. Some were imitations of famous jazz musicians like Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway (the frog getting married in this musical) but the most egregious one was a Steppin Fetchit lookalike. If you don't remember Fetchit, this is because very few of his films air today because his depiction of a stupid, lazy black man is demeaning and awful. More awful is the jazz frog injecting himself with drugs--a stereotype of jazz musicians of the day that, sadly, had a grain of truth.
Oveall, not as cutesy as the typical Harmon-Ising film but to make up for that, it's rather racist and offensive. Not a fine film by any standard except for the quality of the animation, which is excellent.
helpful•101
- planktonrules
- Jan 19, 2017
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Happy Harmonies (1936-1937 Season) #3: Swing Wedding
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime8 minutes
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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