Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs
Encyclopedia
Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (working title: So White and de Sebben Dwarfs) is a Merrie Melodies
animated
cartoon directed by Bob Clampett
, produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions
, and released to theatres on January 16, 1943 by Warner Bros. Pictures and The Vitaphone Corporation.
The film is notable for being an all-black
parody of the Brothers Grimm
fairy tale
Snow White
, known to its audience from the popular 1937 Walt Disney
animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
. The stylistic portrayal of the characters, however, is an example of darky iconography (see blackface
), which was widely accepted in American
society at the time. As such, it is one of the most controversial cartoons in the classic Warner Bros. library, has been rarely seen on television, and (because it is one of the Censored Eleven
; see below) has never been officially released on home video. However, it is often named as one of the best cartoons ever made, in part for its African-American-inspired jazz and swing music, and is considered one of Clampett's masterpieces.
, and speak all of their dialogue in rhyme. The story is set during World War II in the United States
, and the original tale's fairy tale
wholesomeness is replaced in this film by a hot jazz
mentality and sexual overtones. Several scenes unique to Disney's film version of Snow White, such as the wishing-well sequence, the forest full of staring eyes, and the awakening kiss, are directly parodied in this film. The film was intended to have been named So White and de Sebben Dwarfs, which producer Leon Schlesinger
thought was too close to the original film's actual title, and had changed to Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs.
Clampett intended Coal Black as both a parody of Snow White and a dedication to the all-black jazz musical film
s popular in the early 1940s (i.e. Cabin in the Sky
, Stormy Weather
, etc.). In fact, the idea to produce Coal Black came to Clampett after he saw Duke Ellington
's 1941 musical revue Jump for Joy, and Ellington and the cast suggested Clampett make a black musical cartoon. The Clampett unit made a couple of field trips to Club Alabam, a Los Angeles
area black club, to get a feel for the music and the dancing, and Clampett cast popular radio actors as the voices of his main three characters. The main character, So White, is voiced by Vivian Dandridge, sister of Dorothy
. Their mother, Ruby Dandridge
, voices the Wicked Queen. Leo Watson
is the voice of "Prince Chawmin'". The other characters, including the Sebben Dwarfs, are voiced by standard Warner voice artist Mel Blanc
.
Originally, Clampett wanted an all-black band to score the cartoon, the same way Max
and Dave Fleischer
had Cab Calloway and His Orchestra
score the Betty Boop
cartoons Minnie the Moocher
, The Old Man of the Mountain
, and their own version of Snow White
. However, Schlesinger refused, and the black band Clampett had hired, Eddie Beals and His Orchestra, only recorded the music for the final kiss sequence. The rest of the film was scored, as was standard for Warner cartoons, by Carl W. Stalling.
" to tell her the story of "So White an' de Sebben Dwarfs". "Mammy" begins:
The rich, Wicked Queen then appears, depicted as a "food hoarder", with a large repository of items that were on ration during World War II: rubber, sugar, gin ("Eli Whitney
's Cotton Gin
" brand) and more. After stuffing her face with candies (from a box marked "Chattanooga Chew-Chews
"), she asks her magic mirror to "send her a prince 'bout six feet tall", but when Prince Chawmin' arrives in his flashy car, he declares "that mean ol' queen sho' is a fright / but her gal So White is dyn-a-mite!" Finding So White hard at work doing the laundry, the prince takes her hand and the two swing out into a wild jitterbug. The queen sees this and hires "Murder, Incorporated
" to "black-out So White." The assassins arrive in a panel truck that advertises, "We rub out anybody for $1.00; Midget
s: 1/2-price; Jap
s: free". (That US$1 would be equal to US$ today.)
The assassins kidnap the girl, but after several unseen "favors" which make the would-be assassins very happy, set her free in the woods unharmed. Just before they drive off, the assassins are seen covered with So White's lipstick, an innuendo
as to exactly how she earned her freedom. Wandering through the woods by herself, So White runs into the Sebben Dwarfs, seven diminutive army men in uniform who sing "We're in the Army Now," with two dwarfs singing "it takes us cats ... to catch those rats" at the end, and So White declares in a 1940s swing-style singing voice, "I'm wacky over khaki now!" They immediately recruit her as their squad cook, and she spends her days "fryin' up eggs an' pork chops too" (to the tune of "Five O'Clock Whistle") for the hungry soldiers, as a sign which hangs from her outdoor antique stove reads, "Keep 'em frying," as a sendup of the World War II slogan, "Keep 'Em Flying."
Meanwhile, the queen has learned that So White is still alive, and pumps an apple full of poison which she wants to give to the girl and kill her. Several worms escape the apple as the queen injects it with poison, one carrying a sign that says "Refoogees." The queen disguises herself as an old peddler woman, and arrives at the Sebben Dwarfs' camp and gives So White the poisoned apple. One of the seven dwarfs (modeled on the "Dopey" dwarf in Disney's film) alerts the others that the queen has caused So White to "kick the bucket," and the entire squad hops into its vehicles (a Jeep
, a "Beep," and, for "Dopey," a "Peep"). As the queen makes her escape over the hills, the dwarfs load a cannon with both a war shell and "Dopey." The shell sails over to the queen, stops in front of her in mid-air, opens, and "Dopey" appears, knocking the crone out with a mallet.
Even though the queen has been defeated, So White is still dead to the world. The dwarfs note, in spoken rhyme:
Upon the dwarfs' invoking of his name, the prince jumps into the scene in a spotlight and promises to "give her a kiss / and it won't be a dud / I'll bring her to life with my special 'Rosebud'!". Wiping his lip and leaning over the girl in preparation, Prince Chawmin' proceeds to give So White a succession of highly aerobic kisses, practically swallowing the girl's face whole in trying to awaken her, but without any luck. Prince Chawmin' keeps frantically kissing So White (his efforts underscored by a solo from Eddie Beale's trumpet player), and the efforts literally take the life out of him as he first turns blue in the face, before turning into a withered old, pale-faced man, shrugging his shoulders in defeat. The "Dopey" dwarf then saunters over to So White, and, to the tune of "You're in the Army Now," lays a kiss on the girl so dynamic that not only does So White wake up, but her eyes become large as saucers and her pigtails fly straight up into the air (depicted in Rod Scribner's typically extreme animation style) as she jumps into the air.
The worn-out and aged Prince asks "Dopey," "Man, what you got that makes So White think you so hot?!" "Dopey" replies, with the only non-rhyming line the cartoon, "well, dat is a military secret," and lays another kiss on So White, which sends her pigtails sailing into the air again and causes the red ribbons on them to turn into twin American flag
s, to several notes of "The Stars and Stripes Forever", and immediately after the kiss, So White shows an obvious "afterglow" in her eyes and her smile. The film then fades to the standard Merrie Melodies "That's all, Folks!" end title text, superimposed over a shot of the little girl and her "mammy" from the opening scene.
": eleven Schlesinger/Warner Bros. cartoons produced at the height of the Golden Age of Hollywood animation based on arguably racist humor and its unflattering and stereotypical use of darky iconography. Because it was produced in America during World War II
, there is also anti-Japanese sentiment
: the firm "Murder Inc." advertises that it does not charge to kill "Japs".
The same basic stereotypical elements present in the earlier Censored Eleven films are also present in Coal Black, depicted with more detail and made to conform to Clampett's "wacky" directorial style. The Prince, a vague Cab Calloway
lookalike, is depicted as a slender, zoot suit
ed Black man with straightened hair, a monocle
, and gold teeth (with dice in place of the front two incisors). Both he and the dwarfs are drawn with large eyes, small noses, and unnaturally large pink lips, derived from the appearance of a white man in blackface
rather than that of an actual black man. The middle-aged wicked Queen is depicted as an overweight, asexual crone
, with large lips that are only partially covered with lipstick (the Queen's lipstick only extends as far as it would if her lips were proportionate to her face).
Only So White escapes the extreme caricature given the other characters, although she is stereotyped in a different manner. She is designed as an attractive young woman with a voluptuous figure revealed by a short skirt and a low-cut, cleavage-revealing blouse. The sexualization of So White recalls Walter Lantz
's 1941 cartoon Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat
, where a young light-skinned Black woman is depicted as attractive while the other Black characters are drawn as extreme caricatures. In both that film and Coal Black, the sexually attractive features of the young women are significant plot devices. In Coal Black, So White is the object of sexual desire for every male character in the picture. This draws upon the stereotype of the young attractive black woman as an "exotic" sexual being, a stereotype present in roles that African-American actresses such as Dorothy Dandridge
and Lena Horne
played in American cinema.
Clampett would revisit black jazz culture again in another 1943 Merrie Melodies cartoon, Tin Pan Alley Cats
, which features a feline caricature of Fats Waller
in a repurposing of the wacky fantasy world from Porky in Wackyland
(during the opening sequence, the "Fats" cat is distracted by what appears to be a sexy, feline version of So White). Clampett's colleague Friz Freleng
directed a cartoon titled Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears
in 1944, essentially Coal Black remade with a different fairy tale, and Warner's director Chuck Jones
directed a series of shorts starring a prepubescent African hunter named Inki
from 1939 to 1950. Like Coal Black, Tin Pan Alley Cats and Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears would also end up in the Censored 11.
" cartoons led to their being suppressed from television
broadcast. In 1968, United Artists
, which then owned the rights to the pre-August 1948 Warner cartoon library, officially banned the cartoons from circulation, and they have not been officially broadcast or released on home video
since - even as the rights returned to Warners.
Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs is often praised and defended by film scholars and animation historians, and has often been included on lists of the greatest animated films ever made. One such list, the subject of Jerry Beck
's 1994 book The 50 Greatest Cartoons
, placed Coal Black at number twenty-one, based upon votes from over 1000 members of the American animation industry. Scholarly animation texts including Michael Barrier's Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age, name Coal Black as Clampett's undisputed masterpiece. Despite its being banned, Coal Black is a popular draw at film festivals and small-audience screenings, and is often bootlegged
for release on home video.
It was seen briefly in the 1989 Turner Entertainment
VHS release Cartoons For Big Kids, hosted by Leonard Maltin, and in the Behind the Tunes featurette, "Once Upon a Looney Tune" in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5
DVD
box set.
On April 24, 2010, Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs, along with 7 other titles from the Censored Eleven
was screened at the first annual TCM
Film Festival as part of a special presentation hosted by film historian Donald Bogle
; the eight shorts shown were restored for that release.
Merrie Melodies
Merrie Melodies is the name of a series of animated cartoons distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures between 1931 and 1969.Originally produced by Harman-Ising Pictures, Merrie Melodies were produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions from 1933 to 1944. Schlesinger sold his studio to Warner Bros. in 1944,...
animated
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
cartoon directed by Bob Clampett
Bob Clampett
Robert Emerson "Bob" Clampett was an American animator, producer, director, and puppeteer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes animated series from Warner Bros., and the television shows Time for Beany and Beany and Cecil...
, produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions
Warner Bros. Cartoons
Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. was the in-house division of Warner Bros. Pictures during the Golden Age of American animation. One of the most successful animation studios in American media history, Warner Bros. Cartoons was primarily responsible for the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical...
, and released to theatres on January 16, 1943 by Warner Bros. Pictures and The Vitaphone Corporation.
The film is notable for being an all-black
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
parody of the Brothers Grimm
Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...
fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
Snow White
Snow White
"Snow White" is a fairy tale known from many countries in Europe, the best known version being the German one collected by the Brothers Grimm...
, known to its audience from the popular 1937 Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated film based on Snow White, a German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. It was the first full-length cel-animated feature in motion picture history, as well as the first animated feature film produced in America, the first produced in full...
. The stylistic portrayal of the characters, however, is an example of darky iconography (see blackface
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
), which was widely accepted in American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
society at the time. As such, it is one of the most controversial cartoons in the classic Warner Bros. library, has been rarely seen on television, and (because it is one of the Censored Eleven
Censored Eleven
The Censored Eleven is a group of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons that were withheld from syndication by United Artists in 1968...
; see below) has never been officially released on home video. However, it is often named as one of the best cartoons ever made, in part for its African-American-inspired jazz and swing music, and is considered one of Clampett's masterpieces.
History
Overview
In this version of the story, all of the characters are African AmericanAfrican American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
, and speak all of their dialogue in rhyme. The story is set during World War II in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and the original tale's fairy tale
Fairy tale
A fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
wholesomeness is replaced in this film by a hot jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
mentality and sexual overtones. Several scenes unique to Disney's film version of Snow White, such as the wishing-well sequence, the forest full of staring eyes, and the awakening kiss, are directly parodied in this film. The film was intended to have been named So White and de Sebben Dwarfs, which producer Leon Schlesinger
Leon Schlesinger
Leon Schlesinger was an American film producer, most noted for founding Leon Schlesinger Productions, which later became the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio, during the golden age of Hollywood animation.-Early life and career:...
thought was too close to the original film's actual title, and had changed to Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs.
Clampett intended Coal Black as both a parody of Snow White and a dedication to the all-black jazz musical film
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...
s popular in the early 1940s (i.e. Cabin in the Sky
Cabin in the Sky
Cabin in the Sky is a 1943 American musical film with music by Vernon Duke, lyrics by John La Touche, and a musical book by Lynn Root. The musical premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on October 25, 1940. It closed on March 8, 1941 after a total of 156 performances...
, Stormy Weather
Stormy Weather (1943 film)
Stormy Weather is a 1943 American musical film produced and released by 20th Century Fox. The film is one of two major Hollywood musicals produced in 1943 with primarily African-American casts, the other being MGM's Cabin in the Sky, and is considered a time capsule showcasing some of the top...
, etc.). In fact, the idea to produce Coal Black came to Clampett after he saw Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
's 1941 musical revue Jump for Joy, and Ellington and the cast suggested Clampett make a black musical cartoon. The Clampett unit made a couple of field trips to Club Alabam, a Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
area black club, to get a feel for the music and the dancing, and Clampett cast popular radio actors as the voices of his main three characters. The main character, So White, is voiced by Vivian Dandridge, sister of Dorothy
Dorothy Dandridge
Dorothy Jean Dandridge was an American actress and popular singer, and was the first African-American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress...
. Their mother, Ruby Dandridge
Ruby Dandridge
Ruby Dandridge was an American actress from the early 1900s to the 1950s. She is best known for her radio work in her early days of acting....
, voices the Wicked Queen. Leo Watson
Leo Watson
Leo Watson was an American jazz vocalese singer, drummer, trombonist and tiple player born in Kansas City, Missouri, perhaps best known as a band member of The Spirits of Rhythm which included guitarist Teddy Bunn...
is the voice of "Prince Chawmin'". The other characters, including the Sebben Dwarfs, are voiced by standard Warner voice artist Mel Blanc
Mel Blanc
Melvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc was an American voice actor and comedian. Although he began his nearly six-decade-long career performing in radio commercials, Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros...
.
Originally, Clampett wanted an all-black band to score the cartoon, the same way Max
Max Fleischer
Max Fleischer was an American animator. He was a pioneer in the development of the animated cartoon and served as the head of Fleischer Studios...
and Dave Fleischer
Dave Fleischer
David "Dave" Fleischer was an American animator film director and film producer, best known as a co-owner of Fleischer Studios with his two older brothers Max Fleischer and Lou Fleischer...
had Cab Calloway and His Orchestra
Cab Calloway
Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City where he was a regular performer....
score the Betty Boop
Betty Boop
Betty Boop is an animated cartoon character created by Max Fleischer, with help from animators including Grim Natwick. She originally appeared in the Talkartoon and Betty Boop film series, which were produced by Fleischer Studios and released by Paramount Pictures. She has also been featured in...
cartoons Minnie the Moocher
Minnie the Moocher
"Minnie the Moocher" is a jazz song first recorded in 1931 by Cab Calloway and His Orchestra, selling over 1 million copies. "Minnie the Moocher" is most famous for its nonsensical ad libbed lyrics . In performances, Calloway would have the audience participate by repeating each scat phrase in a...
, The Old Man of the Mountain
The Old Man of the Mountain (1933 cartoon)
The Old Man of the Mountain is a 1933 animated short in the Betty Boop series, produced by Fleischer Studios. Featuring special guests Cab Calloway and His Orchestra, the short was originally released to theaters on August 4, 1933 by Paramount Productions...
, and their own version of Snow White
Snow White (1933 cartoon)
Snow White is a 1933 animated short film in the Betty Boop series from Max Fleischer's Fleischer Studios. Dave Fleischer was credited as director, although virtually all the animation was done by Roland Crandall...
. However, Schlesinger refused, and the black band Clampett had hired, Eddie Beals and His Orchestra, only recorded the music for the final kiss sequence. The rest of the film was scored, as was standard for Warner cartoons, by Carl W. Stalling.
Synopsis
Coal Black opens in front of a fireplace with a red-tinted silhouette of a large woman holding a young child in her lap. The little black girl asks her "mammyMammy archetype
The mammy archetype is perhaps one of the best-known archetypes of African American women. She is often portrayed within a narrative framework or other imagery as a domestic servant of African descent, generally good-natured, often overweight, very dark skinned, middle aged, and loud...
" to tell her the story of "So White an' de Sebben Dwarfs". "Mammy" begins:
- "Well, once there was a mean ol' queen. And she lived in a gorgeous castle. And was that ole' gal rich! She was just as rich as she was mean! She had everythang!"
The rich, Wicked Queen then appears, depicted as a "food hoarder", with a large repository of items that were on ration during World War II: rubber, sugar, gin ("Eli Whitney
Eli Whitney
Eli Whitney was an American inventor best known for inventing the cotton gin. This was one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution and shaped the economy of the Antebellum South...
's Cotton Gin
Cotton gin
A cotton gin is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, a job formerly performed painstakingly by hand...
" brand) and more. After stuffing her face with candies (from a box marked "Chattanooga Chew-Chews
Chattanooga Choo Choo
"Chattanooga Choo Choo" is a song by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon . It was recorded in a big-band/swing manner by Glenn Miller and his orchestra and featured in the 1941 movie Sun Valley Serenade, which starred Sonja Henie, John Payne, Glenn Miller and his orchestra, The Modernaires, Milton Berle...
"), she asks her magic mirror to "send her a prince 'bout six feet tall", but when Prince Chawmin' arrives in his flashy car, he declares "that mean ol' queen sho' is a fright / but her gal So White is dyn-a-mite!" Finding So White hard at work doing the laundry, the prince takes her hand and the two swing out into a wild jitterbug. The queen sees this and hires "Murder, Incorporated
Murder, Inc.
Murder, Inc. was the name given by the press to organized crime groups in the 1920s through the 1940s that resulted in hundreds of murders on behalf of the American Mafia and Jewish Mafia groups who together formed the early organized crime groups in New York and...
" to "black-out So White." The assassins arrive in a panel truck that advertises, "We rub out anybody for $1.00; Midget
Midget
A midget is a short person with relatively average bodily proportions in comparison with other human beings. The term is often improperly used to describe a person with the medical condition dwarfism. The two terms are often used synonymously because both terms originate as words defining small...
s: 1/2-price; Jap
Jap
Jap is an English abbreviation of the word "Japanese." Today it is generally regarded as an ethnic slur, although English-speaking countries differ in the degree to which they consider the term offensive. In the United States, Japanese Americans have come to find the term controversial or...
s: free". (That US$1 would be equal to US$ today.)
The assassins kidnap the girl, but after several unseen "favors" which make the would-be assassins very happy, set her free in the woods unharmed. Just before they drive off, the assassins are seen covered with So White's lipstick, an innuendo
Innuendo
An innuendo is a baseless invention of thoughts or ideas. It can also be a remark or question, typically disparaging , that works obliquely by allusion...
as to exactly how she earned her freedom. Wandering through the woods by herself, So White runs into the Sebben Dwarfs, seven diminutive army men in uniform who sing "We're in the Army Now," with two dwarfs singing "it takes us cats ... to catch those rats" at the end, and So White declares in a 1940s swing-style singing voice, "I'm wacky over khaki now!" They immediately recruit her as their squad cook, and she spends her days "fryin' up eggs an' pork chops too" (to the tune of "Five O'Clock Whistle") for the hungry soldiers, as a sign which hangs from her outdoor antique stove reads, "Keep 'em frying," as a sendup of the World War II slogan, "Keep 'Em Flying."
Meanwhile, the queen has learned that So White is still alive, and pumps an apple full of poison which she wants to give to the girl and kill her. Several worms escape the apple as the queen injects it with poison, one carrying a sign that says "Refoogees." The queen disguises herself as an old peddler woman, and arrives at the Sebben Dwarfs' camp and gives So White the poisoned apple. One of the seven dwarfs (modeled on the "Dopey" dwarf in Disney's film) alerts the others that the queen has caused So White to "kick the bucket," and the entire squad hops into its vehicles (a Jeep
Jeep
Jeep is an automobile marque of Chrysler . The first Willys Jeeps were produced in 1941 with the first civilian models in 1945, making it the oldest off-road vehicle and sport utility vehicle brand. It inspired a number of other light utility vehicles, such as the Land Rover which is the second...
, a "Beep," and, for "Dopey," a "Peep"). As the queen makes her escape over the hills, the dwarfs load a cannon with both a war shell and "Dopey." The shell sails over to the queen, stops in front of her in mid-air, opens, and "Dopey" appears, knocking the crone out with a mallet.
Even though the queen has been defeated, So White is still dead to the world. The dwarfs note, in spoken rhyme:
- "She's outta this world! She's stiff as wood!
- She's got it bad, and that ain't good!
- There's only one thing that'll remedy this
- and dat's Prince Chawmin' and his Dynamite Kiss!'"'
Upon the dwarfs' invoking of his name, the prince jumps into the scene in a spotlight and promises to "give her a kiss / and it won't be a dud / I'll bring her to life with my special 'Rosebud'!". Wiping his lip and leaning over the girl in preparation, Prince Chawmin' proceeds to give So White a succession of highly aerobic kisses, practically swallowing the girl's face whole in trying to awaken her, but without any luck. Prince Chawmin' keeps frantically kissing So White (his efforts underscored by a solo from Eddie Beale's trumpet player), and the efforts literally take the life out of him as he first turns blue in the face, before turning into a withered old, pale-faced man, shrugging his shoulders in defeat. The "Dopey" dwarf then saunters over to So White, and, to the tune of "You're in the Army Now," lays a kiss on the girl so dynamic that not only does So White wake up, but her eyes become large as saucers and her pigtails fly straight up into the air (depicted in Rod Scribner's typically extreme animation style) as she jumps into the air.
The worn-out and aged Prince asks "Dopey," "Man, what you got that makes So White think you so hot?!" "Dopey" replies, with the only non-rhyming line the cartoon, "well, dat is a military secret," and lays another kiss on So White, which sends her pigtails sailing into the air again and causes the red ribbons on them to turn into twin American flag
Flag of the United States
The national flag of the United States of America consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows of six stars alternating with rows...
s, to several notes of "The Stars and Stripes Forever", and immediately after the kiss, So White shows an obvious "afterglow" in her eyes and her smile. The film then fades to the standard Merrie Melodies "That's all, Folks!" end title text, superimposed over a shot of the little girl and her "mammy" from the opening scene.
Controversy over racist content
Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs is notorious for being one of the "Censored ElevenCensored Eleven
The Censored Eleven is a group of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons that were withheld from syndication by United Artists in 1968...
": eleven Schlesinger/Warner Bros. cartoons produced at the height of the Golden Age of Hollywood animation based on arguably racist humor and its unflattering and stereotypical use of darky iconography. Because it was produced in America during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, there is also anti-Japanese sentiment
Anti-Japanese sentiment
Anti-Japanese sentiment involves hatred, grievance, distrust, dehumanization, intimidation, fear, hostility, and/or general dislike of the Japanese people and Japanese diaspora as ethnic or national group, Japan, Japanese culture, and/or anything Japanese. Sometimes the terms Japanophobia and...
: the firm "Murder Inc." advertises that it does not charge to kill "Japs".
The same basic stereotypical elements present in the earlier Censored Eleven films are also present in Coal Black, depicted with more detail and made to conform to Clampett's "wacky" directorial style. The Prince, a vague Cab Calloway
Cab Calloway
Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City where he was a regular performer....
lookalike, is depicted as a slender, zoot suit
Zoot suit
A zoot suit is a suit with high-waisted, wide-legged, tight-cuffed, pegged trousers, and a long coat with wide lapels and wide padded shoulders. This style of clothing was popularized by African Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Italian Americans during the late 1930s and the 1940s...
ed Black man with straightened hair, a monocle
Monocle
A monocle is a type of corrective lens used to correct or enhance the vision in only one eye. It consists of a circular lens, generally with a wire ring around the circumference that can be attached to a string. The other end of the string is then connected to the wearer's clothing to avoid losing...
, and gold teeth (with dice in place of the front two incisors). Both he and the dwarfs are drawn with large eyes, small noses, and unnaturally large pink lips, derived from the appearance of a white man in blackface
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
rather than that of an actual black man. The middle-aged wicked Queen is depicted as an overweight, asexual crone
Hag
A hag is a wizened old woman, or a kind of fairy or goddess having the appearance of such a woman, often found in folklore and children's tales such as Hansel and Gretel. Hags are often seen as malevolent, but may also be one of the chosen forms of shapeshifting deities, such as the Morrígan or...
, with large lips that are only partially covered with lipstick (the Queen's lipstick only extends as far as it would if her lips were proportionate to her face).
Only So White escapes the extreme caricature given the other characters, although she is stereotyped in a different manner. She is designed as an attractive young woman with a voluptuous figure revealed by a short skirt and a low-cut, cleavage-revealing blouse. The sexualization of So White recalls Walter Lantz
Walter Lantz
Walter Benjamin Lantz was an American cartoonist, animator, film producer, and director, best known for founding Walter Lantz Productions and creating Woody Woodpecker.-Early years and start in animation:...
's 1941 cartoon Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat
Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat
"Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat" is a pre-Civil Rights 1940 hit boogie-woogie song written by Don Raye. A bawdy, jazzy tune, the song describes a laundry woman from Harlem, New York whose technique is so unusual that people come from all around just to watch her scrub...
, where a young light-skinned Black woman is depicted as attractive while the other Black characters are drawn as extreme caricatures. In both that film and Coal Black, the sexually attractive features of the young women are significant plot devices. In Coal Black, So White is the object of sexual desire for every male character in the picture. This draws upon the stereotype of the young attractive black woman as an "exotic" sexual being, a stereotype present in roles that African-American actresses such as Dorothy Dandridge
Dorothy Dandridge
Dorothy Jean Dandridge was an American actress and popular singer, and was the first African-American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress...
and Lena Horne
Lena Horne
Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...
played in American cinema.
Clampett would revisit black jazz culture again in another 1943 Merrie Melodies cartoon, Tin Pan Alley Cats
Tin Pan Alley Cats
Tin Pan Alley Cats is a 1943 animated short subject, directed by Bob Clampett for Leon Schlesinger Productions as part of Warner Bros.' Merrie Melodies series...
, which features a feline caricature of Fats Waller
Fats Waller
Fats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...
in a repurposing of the wacky fantasy world from Porky in Wackyland
Porky in Wackyland
Porky in Wackyland is a 1938 animated short film, directed by Robert Clampett for Leon Schlesinger Productions as part of Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes series....
(during the opening sequence, the "Fats" cat is distracted by what appears to be a sexy, feline version of So White). Clampett's colleague Friz Freleng
Friz Freleng
Isadore "Friz" Freleng was an animator, cartoonist, director, and producer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros....
directed a cartoon titled Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears
Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears
Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears is an animated cartoon short written by Tedd Pierce and directed by Friz Freleng. It was released on September 2, 1944, by Warner Brothers as part of its Merrie Melodies series....
in 1944, essentially Coal Black remade with a different fairy tale, and Warner's director Chuck Jones
Chuck Jones
Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio...
directed a series of shorts starring a prepubescent African hunter named Inki
Inki
Inki is the lead character in an animated cartoon series of Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies short films by animator Chuck Jones....
from 1939 to 1950. Like Coal Black, Tin Pan Alley Cats and Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears would also end up in the Censored 11.
Coal Black in later years
The racially stereotyped portrayals of African-Americans in Coal Black and the other "Censored ElevenCensored Eleven
The Censored Eleven is a group of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons that were withheld from syndication by United Artists in 1968...
" cartoons led to their being suppressed from television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
broadcast. In 1968, United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
, which then owned the rights to the pre-August 1948 Warner cartoon library, officially banned the cartoons from circulation, and they have not been officially broadcast or released on home video
Home video
Home video is a blanket term used for pre-recorded media that is either sold or rented/hired for home cinema entertainment. The term originates from the VHS/Betamax era but has carried over into current optical disc formats like DVD and Blu-ray Disc and, to a lesser extent, into methods of digital...
since - even as the rights returned to Warners.
Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs is often praised and defended by film scholars and animation historians, and has often been included on lists of the greatest animated films ever made. One such list, the subject of Jerry Beck
Jerry Beck
Jerry Beck is a well-known animation historian, with ten books and numerous articles to his credit. He is also an animation producer, an industry consultant to Warner Bros., and has been an executive with Nickelodeon and Disney....
's 1994 book The 50 Greatest Cartoons
The 50 Greatest Cartoons
The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals is a 1994 book by animation historian Jerry Beck, consisting of articles about, and rankings of fifty highly-regarded animated short films made in North America, as well as many other notable cartoons. It generated a significant...
, placed Coal Black at number twenty-one, based upon votes from over 1000 members of the American animation industry. Scholarly animation texts including Michael Barrier's Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age, name Coal Black as Clampett's undisputed masterpiece. Despite its being banned, Coal Black is a popular draw at film festivals and small-audience screenings, and is often bootlegged
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
for release on home video.
It was seen briefly in the 1989 Turner Entertainment
Turner Entertainment
Turner Entertainment Company, Inc. is an American media company founded by Ted Turner. Now owned by Time Warner, the company is largely responsible for overseeing its library for worldwide distribution Turner Entertainment Company, Inc. (commonly known as Turner Entertainment Co.) is an American...
VHS release Cartoons For Big Kids, hosted by Leonard Maltin, and in the Behind the Tunes featurette, "Once Upon a Looney Tune" in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5
Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 5 is a Looney Tunes collection on DVD. Following the pattern of one release each year of the previous volumes, it was released on October 30, 2007....
DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
box set.
On April 24, 2010, Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs, along with 7 other titles from the Censored Eleven
Censored Eleven
The Censored Eleven is a group of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons that were withheld from syndication by United Artists in 1968...
was screened at the first annual TCM
Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies is a movie-oriented cable television channel, owned by the Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary of Time Warner, featuring commercial-free classic movies, mostly from the Turner Entertainment and MGM, United Artists, RKO and Warner Bros. film libraries...
Film Festival as part of a special presentation hosted by film historian Donald Bogle
Donald Bogle
Donald Bogle is a film historian and author of six books concerning African Americans in film and on television. He is an instructor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and at the University of Pennsylvania.-Early years:...
; the eight shorts shown were restored for that release.
Crew
- Produced by Leon SchlesingerLeon SchlesingerLeon Schlesinger was an American film producer, most noted for founding Leon Schlesinger Productions, which later became the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio, during the golden age of Hollywood animation.-Early life and career:...
- Directed by Robert Clampett
- Story and storyboards by Warren FosterWarren FosterWarren Foster , was a writer, cartoonist and composer for the animation division of Warner Brothers and later with Hanna-Barbera....
- Animation by Rod ScribnerRod ScribnerRoderick H. "Rod" Scribner was an American animator best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros.. His animation was one of the wildest things ever seen on screen during The Golden Age of American animation. He started as an animator for Ben...
, Robert McKimsonRobert McKimsonRobert "Bob" Porter McKimson, Sr. was an American animator, illustrator, and director best known for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros., and later DePatie-Freleng Enterprises...
, Tom McKimson, and Manuel Gould- (note: only Scribner receives screen credit, as per a Schlesinger edict that, in the interest of saving money on title card lettering, only one animator could be credited on each cartoon)
- Character Design by Gene Hazelton (uncredited)
- Layout by Michael Sasanoff (uncredited)
- Musical score by Carl W. Stalling
- Additional score by Eddie Beale and his Orchestra (uncredited)
Voice cast
- Ruby DandridgeRuby DandridgeRuby Dandridge was an American actress from the early 1900s to the 1950s. She is best known for her radio work in her early days of acting....
as Mammy - Danny Webb as the Queen
- Vivian DandridgeVivian DandridgeVivian Alferetta Dandridge was a singer and actress. She is best known as the sister of actress Dorothy Dandridge and the daughter of character actress Ruby Dandridge...
as So White - Leo WatsonLeo WatsonLeo Watson was an American jazz vocalese singer, drummer, trombonist and tiple player born in Kansas City, Missouri, perhaps best known as a band member of The Spirits of Rhythm which included guitarist Teddy Bunn...
as Prince Chawmin' - Mel BlancMel BlancMelvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc was an American voice actor and comedian. Although he began his nearly six-decade-long career performing in radio commercials, Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros...
as the Sebben Dwarfs and other various voices
External links
- Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs at DailymotionDailymotionDailymotion is a video sharing service website, headquartered in the 18th arrondissement, Paris, France. According to Comscore, Dailymotion is the second largest video site in the world after YouTube....
- Milt Gray on Coal Black
- Debate over Coal Black