21. Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land (1931)

This is the first Warner Bros. cartoons that have been part of a category called the Censored Eleven, because the cartoon stereotyped a character there named Uncle Tom, we'll find out more on this review. Also, the last appearance of Piggy and Fluffy.

Warner cartoon no. 20.
Release date: November 28, 1931.
Series: Merrie Melodies.
Directed by: Rudolf Ising.
Producers: Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising and Leon Schlesinger (associate).
Cast unknown. 
Animation: Isadore "Friz" Freleng and Paul Smith.
Musical Score by: Frank Marsales.

The short starts out with a riverboat saying through a river, and it appears to be similar to the riverboat that you see in Steamboat Willie, with the funnels blowing from one funnel to the other. The riverboat goes down some slopy waterfalls, in which the boat makes a shape while sailing down. There are also passengers on deck singing the title song, Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land.  With the main guy playing the banjo, and another with chopsticks, and another with some type of harmonica. There are also huge whistles onto the riverboat, and even a hut that's attached or tuged onto the riverboat that does a small whistle.

 Meanwhile there is ol'Uncle Tom who is on a carriage riding a mule, and it appears to he his niece Fluffy is riding with him, comparing with the outfit she's wearing - this cartoon must have been set in the 19th century in the South part of America. They appear to be singing a bit of music I can't understand (Update: Yowp points out that the song they are singing is Camptown Races which was a famous song that used to be a sung a lot in the South part of the United States, and also popular to blacks back in the 19th century), and it seems that Uncle Tom keeps bumping on his seat, and his mule that whinnies. Fluffy would scream when she sees the riverboat, "Oh there's the boat, Uncle Tom", and he would whip the donkey that makes the donkey sounds.

In the meantime, here is Piggy, who is steering the ship - and the scene where he's steering the wheel is just like another shot of Mickey Mouse steering from Steamboat Willie. Gee, Rudolf Ising sure liked to reuse old Disney cartoons made around their time back then. Piggy pulls the ship's whistles, and the biggest one has a crow that sticks out and makes a "coo-coo" sound from the whistle.

The ship finally docks to the harbor, and there are passengers waiting to board the ship that are cheering, Fluffy is one of them that boards the ship to get ready, and as she gets on, she says "Goodbye," to Uncle Tom. In the meantime, as the ship sails - there is a band that plays on the deck - again.

 It appears to be that Piggy and Fluffy are dancing on the aft side of the ship, then Piggy accidentally falls off the ship, and he hurts himself from the paddle wheel, and he lands onto the water, and climbs onto what appears to be a "rock" from Piggy's mind. Nope, the rock turns out to be an aligator from the river, who swims after Piggy, and now Piggy is in trouble. He swims onto a log, and he uses his tail like a propeller to speed away from the aligator and back onto the riverboat.

The gag where Piggy spots what looks like a rock is similar to the one in Bosko Shipwrecked.

Meanwhile, Uncle Tom is sleeping on his carriage while riding on the mule, he keeps getting whipped on the face from the donkey's tail, so he puts a rock and ties it on his tale, so he doesn't get whipped. Apparently, the tail is so wrong, that the rock smashes Uncle Tom off the carriage and into a cemetery. Uncle Tom looks at the horrors inside and shouts "Holy mackerel!" Uncle Tom walks along the graveyard, and a tombstone opens with bats swarming out.

 In fact, I haven't even mentioned about Uncle Tom yet and why it's part of the Censored Eleven. The main reason why it's part of the censored eleven, partly because the character is called Uncle Tom and stereotyping folklore on black people, and Uncle Tom was a  fictional character who was black. I've always thought that Uncle Tom looked like Uncle Remus, a bit.

The skeletons start to appear, and haunt the daylights out of Uncle Tom. The skeletons are singing off Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land and there is also a skeleton dog that comes out of the tombstone that barks. Uncle Tom then starts to panic and tries to run out of the cemetery, and there are skeletons chasing after him, and scaring him at different places of the graveyard. I must say that the whole skeleton sequence is very similar to The Skeleton Dance another Disney production made in 1929.

Uncle Tom jumps out of the cemetery through the broken pieces of the walls, and he finds a canoe and he jumps into the river with the rowboat, swims for his life and then drowns. Piggy sees that Uncle Tom is in trouble, and even he stands up and bravely announces, "I'll save Uncle Tom", and he's about to dive into the water, and his pants fall out in air, so he dives back, puts his pants back on and then he dives back. He manages to grab Uncle Tom who is drowning. What's interesting is that in the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, it was said that Uncle Tom sold "down the river", and probably meant he drowned, and I assumed that it was used for this cartoon.

As Fluffy watches Piggy save Uncle Tom from the river, there is some type of villain with a curly moustache who takes Fluffy away from Piggy. Piggy rescues Uncle Tom from the river, and hears Fluffy's screams from the riverboat shouting for help. Piggy runs along to a "cargo hook" and he helps rescue Fluffy by attaching the villain's jacket onto the hook, and Fluffy steps off and joins Piggy on top of the hook. Fluffy looses the hook and the villain is being jabbed in the bottom by a buzzing saw, Piggy and Fluffy laugh at what is happening - and that's all folks!

That's the end of my review in this cartoon, when I saw this cartoon (already knowing it was part of the Censored 11) I didn't think the cartoon was VERY racist at all, but I guess the reason why it was in that group because it's stereotyping Uncle Tom who is a black stereotypes, and Uncle Tom was a character created by Harriet Beecher Stowe. I also thought the design for Uncle Tom didn't look very noticeable as a black person when I saw it, I thought it looked like another "ink" person, but with the mention of "Uncle Tom", it did give it away.

This was quite a crazy cartoon, and also quite an adventure, with the skeletons, and villains. They reused a lot of footage from Disney cartoons like in Steamboat Willie or The Skeleton Dance, which was largely noticeable

19. You Don't Know What You're Doin' (1931)

A new Merrie Melodies cartoon that hasn't got Foxy in it, this time it's another brief character, Piggy.

Warner cartoon no. 18.
Release date: October 21, 1931.
Series: Merrie Melodies.
Directed by: Rudolf Ising.
Producers: Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising and Leon Schlesinger (associate).
Starring: Orlando Martins (car).
Animation: Isadore "Friz" Freleng and Norm Blackburn.
Musical Score by: Frank Marsales.

 The cartoon starts off at a music hall where there is a lion conducting music and there appears to be a jazz session going on (there is even a rabbit who taps the conductors' butt cheeks for drum rhythm), and then the music continues. There is a huge crowd gathering in the theater. Meanwhile, Piggy (our new character) is riding on a type type of motorbike is driving to his girlfriend's house, Fluffy.

As soon as Piggy parks outside Fluffy's house, the fumes almost explode and Piggy jumps. We see Fluffy in silhouette powdering, putting makeup on, and humming to music. There is a gargoyle on a fountain that Piggy is standing near, and he pushes it's belly button and then the gargoyle comes to life playing horns (which could be another type of doorbell??). Fluffy is ready for the date out and then they go on the motorcycle.

 As soon as Piggy and Fluffy arrive outside the theater with crowds in the background, the motorbike has a bumpy stop and the usher laughs at the motorcycle and at Piggy and Fluffy, too. The usher realized that it was rude to laugh and covers his mouth, and then allows Piggy and Fluffy to go through. They both ignore the usher and then the car ignores him and walks under his leg and then dust comes out of his exhaust pipe (like a fart?) and then the dust from the motorbike covers the usher in black, and it's a black face stereotyped, and he shouts to the audience "MAMMY", they used the repeated gag that was used in earlier Bosko cartoons - AGAIN?? Ok, this is getting tiring the whole "Mammy" concept.

Notice that the crowd in the background at the start of the scene are cheering and waving their arms around, for a while there is ahuge freeze frame that lasts seconds, and until the usher cries "Mammy" the crowd start laughing. In my opinion, this is a very bad freeze frame, I guess that the crowd had to be quiet and not too much, and that animation wasn't go great in 1931, but not a freeze frame that matches so badly. I also noticed that the scenes of the crowds cheering feels like that there were no "inbetweens" placed on the key drawings.

 As soon as Piggy and Fluffy enter the music hall, they come to the front where they see a hippo playing a trumpet (part of the orchestra). He pulls his bib and then it rolls up and hits the hippo on the neck. The hippo is complaining (this is speaking in a different language backwards?), and then Piggy and Fluffy laugh.

On that picture above, there is something that bugs me, and it's the dancing cats doing the can-can. What puts he off is the colour used ion the stage, I mean - what are they? Are they ghosts? The colours don't match very well, and it makes me think what type of ink did the inkers use?

As soon as the music finishes, everyone in the hall applaud and enjoyed the music. All, except Piggy who razzies at them and comments about them, "you don't know what you're doin'", and I guess what he means is that they have no taste of music, and don't even know what bad music he thought they were playing. Fluffy seemed annoyed by Piggy taunting them, as you can see in the facial expressions.

There is a trumpeter in the orchestra, who seemed offended by Piggy, and communicates to him by playing the trumpet with the sound going "Oh yeah?", and then it seems that Piggy and the trumpeter communicate towards each other through the woodwind instruments, Piggy using the saxophone, and the other with his trumpet.

Meanwhile, there are three drunken dogs on top of a balcony, who appear to be making annoying sounds and laughing, and then one of the drunks sing a verse on You Don't Know What You're Doin' and the other drunks join in. Piggy starts to sing the tune too, and they are singing the song through argument. Huh, I don't know the lyrics too well, but the title song would work for an argument.

After the drunks have finished singing, there is a round of applause from the audience who liked their singing, and they throw objects up as part of the cheering. One of the drunks jump off the balcony and lands on stage with Piggy. The dog takes a drink out of his booze and then shows his breath on Piggy's face, and causing Piggy to go dizzy. The breath causes Piggy to go drunk, I never really thought of breath of alcohol can get you drunk, mind you I've never drank alcohol so I don't know. There is some good acting here, and the fact that when the dog shows his stinky breath, it really looks like it smells bad.

Piggy and the dog both step outside int he streets, Piggy is holding out a bottle of alcohol and pours it in his tank like gasoline, and then the car starts to breathe (voiced by Orlando Martins), and then the car starts to run like crazy. Piggy starts to chase after the dog, with a crazy animated background, and the whole part is mind of mad, and what you would see if you took drugs. The roads are even animated when there is a big hill and then when there is a small hill, it's sort of like a real acid trip, this sequence. The crazy music even adds the finishing touch. Also, the drunk also walks along wasted following the car.

While Piggy is finally in the car, he seems to have some hallucination where there is towers and buildings that are dancing too, although I don't know if this is being shown as a hallucination. The hills are being animated for no reason, that once it goes high up, the dog slides backwards. The dog sees some type of monster (ToonZone confirms it as a sewer drain) and the dog screams right at the camera. Piggy mysteriously falls out of his motorbike and falls down and lands in a car with the drunk dog, and then the car stops at an edge of a cliff, drops them in trash bins, and then they finish the finale - and that's all folks!

This was an interesting cartoon to watch. I thought that the beginning parts were sort of bland and a typical Harman-Ising cartoon, while the second part was like an acid-trip with the crazy animation of Piggy and the dog drunk, and the crazy backgrounds. This wasn't a bad cartoon to watch, I'd say - even though it was crazy.

I must admit, I've never really was fussed about the idea of two pig characters and that they look cute. Personally, I find pigs kind of ugly - and I prefer the concept with coupled characters like foxes, mice, cats, etc. A male pig and a female pig just doesn't suit me in my taste.