Tin Pan Alley Cats
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by Bob Clampett
| Tin Pan Alley Cats | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Bob Clampett |
| Story by | Warren Foster |
| Based on | Porky in Wackyland by Bob Clampett |
| Produced by | Leon Schlesinger |
| Starring | Mel Blanc The Four Dreamers Four Spirits of Rhythm Zoot Watson (Leo Watson) (all uncredited) |
| Music by | Carl W. Stalling |
| Animation by | Rod Scribner Robert McKimson (unc.) Art Babbitt (unc.) Manny Gould (unc.) Virgil Ross (unc.) |
| Backgrounds by | Richard H. Thomas (uncredited) |
| Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | |
Release date |
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Running time | 7 min |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Tin Pan Alley Cats is a 1943 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies directed by Bob Clampett.[1] A follow-up to Clampett's successful Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs, released earlier in 1943, Tin Pan Alley Cats focuses upon contemporary themes of African-American culture, jazz music, and World War II, and features a caricature of jazz musician Fats Waller as an anthropomorphic cat.[2][3] The short's centerpiece is a fantasy sequence derived from Clampett's black and white Looney Tunes short Porky in Wackyland (1938).
Like Coal Black, Tin Pan Alley Cats focuses heavily on stereotypical gags, character designs, and situations involving African-Americans. As such, the film and other Warner Bros. cartoons with similar themes have been withheld from television distribution since 1968, and are collectively known as the Censored Eleven.
The cartoon opens with a cat who resembles Fats Waller crosses a storefront with two doors, one entering the Kit Kat Klub and the other the Uncle Tomcat Mission. A missionary warns the cat of "wine, women and song" if he goes in the club. This, however, only excites the cat ("Wine women an' song? What's de motor wid dat?") who immediately runs in. At first, he enjoys the club, but he becomes so immersed in the music that he is carried "out-of-this-world" to Wackyland, where giant caricatures of Adolf Hitler, Hideki Tojo and Joseph Stalin frighten him so much that, when he wakes up, he gives up his partying ways and joins the mission band to their surprise.
Production
In part because of budget limitations and wartime shortages, several sequences borrow animation and audio recordings from earlier Schlesinger cartoons. From Friz Freleng's "products come to life" Merrie Melodies short, September In The Rain (1937), the recorded performance of "Nagasaki" is re-used completely intact, and the "Fats Waller" cat, "Louis Armstrong" trumpeter, jitterbugging woman and the trio of singing bartenders are re-purposed for this cartoon. Gags from the "out-of-this-world" sequence feature color-redrawn versions of characters and visuals (along with re-recorded audio segments) from Clampett's 1938 Porky in Wackyland.
Segments specifically created for the nightmare sequence (such as the "Rubber (musical) Band" made up of rubber bands) would resurface in Friz Freleng's 1949 color remake of Porky in Wackyland, Dough for the Do-Do.
Reception
Motion Picture Herald (July 17, 1943): "The trumpet notes of a night club musician are a little too much for Leon Schlesinger's cat and like so many of the present-day jitterbugs, he's sent "out of this world." When he gets there, however, he's happy to return to earth's solid soil for the weird land of phantasy is not all it's cracked up to be. Music and laughs are combined in a pleasant Technicolor cartoon."[4]
Author and music critic Will Friedwald writes, "Tin Pan Alley Cats is an animated equivalent to the live-action features Stormy Weather (1943) and Cabin in the Sky (1943), which represented both the climax and the conclusion of the all-black Hollywood musical spectacular... The only thing that's the matter is that Tin Pan Alley Cats represents a near last stand for both black characters and extended musical numbers in the Hollywood cartoon."[5]