Tin Pan Alley Cats
Encyclopedia
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. 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. 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
.
caricature going out for a night on the town. He is about to go into a club when a street preacher warns him that he will be tempted with "wine, women and song
" if he goes in. 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 a manic fantasy realm filled with surreal imagery
(including caricatures of Adolf Hitler
, Hideki Tojo
and Joseph Stalin
.) This world frightens him so much that, when he wakes up, he gives up his partying ways and joins the religious music group singing outside, much to their surprise.
's 1937 "products come to life" Merrie Melodies
short, September In The Rain, 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-prurposed 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 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
.
This cartoon would be the last Warner Bros. theatrical cartoon produced by Leon Schlesinger
to feature an all-black cast, excluding Chuck Jones' Inki
cartoons.
the background was also used for the walls of Noah Byrd's house on what you see in the Noah Byrd movie.
banned Tin Pan Alley Cats, along with the rest of the "Censored Eleven
", from American television in 1968. Turner Entertainment
(today owned by Time Warner
) acquired the rights to these cartoons in 1986, and have upheld UA's ban (and also applied to home video release) to this day.
Of the cartoons included in the Censored Eleven, animation historians and film scholars are quickest to defend the two directed by Bob Clampett
: Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs
and Tin Pan Alley Cats
. The former, a jazz
-based parody of Walt Disney
's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
, is frequently included on lists of the greatest cartoons ever made, while the latter is a hot jazz re-interpretation of Clampett's now-classic 1938 short Porky in Wackyland
. Author Michelle Klein-Hass wrote the following:
Bootleg copies have surfaced on videotape and DVD, and are frequently added to (and - due to copyright infringement - subsequently removed from) sites such as YouTube
and Google Video
. Warner Home Video
has issued restored clips of the film as a part of a supplementary documentary on Bob Clampett on disc three of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2
DVD collector's set. In October 2010, it was announed that a complete version will be officially released, along with the rest of the "Censored 11", on DVD through the Warner Archives collection http://www.toonzone.net/news/articles/35331/nycc2010-warner-archive-to-release-the-censored-eleven/.
Short subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...
, 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...
for 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...
as part of Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
' Merrie Melodies
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,...
series. A follow-up to Clampett's successful Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs
Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs
Coal Black 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...
, released earlier in 1943, Tin Pan Alley Cats focuses upon contemporary themes of African-American culture, jazz music, and 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...
, and features a caricature of jazz musician Fats Waller
Fats Waller
Fats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...
as an anthropomorphic cat. The short's centerpiece is a fantasy sequence derived from Clampett's black and white Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...
short 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....
(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
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...
.
Synopsis
The cartoon opens with a cat who resembles a Fats WallerFats Waller
Fats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...
caricature going out for a night on the town. He is about to go into a club when a street preacher warns him that he will be tempted with "wine, women and song
Wine, women and song
The cliché "wine, women, and song" is a rhetorical figure of a triad or hendiatris. It describes a lifestyle or set of behaviors which are indulgent or pleasure-seeking...
" if he goes in. 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 a manic fantasy realm filled with surreal imagery
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....
(including caricatures of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, Hideki Tojo
Hideki Tōjō
Hideki Tōjō was a general of the Imperial Japanese Army , the leader of the Taisei Yokusankai, and the 40th Prime Minister of Japan during most of World War II, from 17 October 1941 to 22 July 1944...
and Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
.) This world frightens him so much that, when he wakes up, he gives up his partying ways and joins the religious music group singing outside, much 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 FrelengFriz 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....
's 1937 "products come to life" Merrie Melodies
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,...
short, September In The Rain, the recorded performance of "Nagasaki
Nagasaki (song)
"Nagasaki" is a jazz song from 1928 by Harry Warren and Mort Dixon that became a popular Tin Pan Alley hit. The silly, bawdy lyrics have only the vaguest relation to the Japanese port city 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-prurposed 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 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....
.
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
Dough for the Do-Do
Dough for the Do-Do is a Warner Brothers Merrie Melodies theatrical cartoon short released in 1949 and directed by Friz Freleng. The color remake of Bob Clampett's cartoon Porky in Wackyland , it is available on Disc 2 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1.-Plot:A newspaper shows Porky...
.
This cartoon would be the last Warner Bros. theatrical cartoon produced by 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:...
to feature an all-black cast, excluding Chuck Jones' 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....
cartoons.
the background was also used for the walls of Noah Byrd's house on what you see in the Noah Byrd movie.
Home video release and Censorship
Following the African-American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, United ArtistsUnited 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....
banned Tin Pan Alley Cats, along with the rest 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...
", from American television in 1968. 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...
(today owned by Time Warner
Time Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
) acquired the rights to these cartoons in 1986, and have upheld UA's ban (and also applied to home video release) to this day.
Of the cartoons included in the Censored Eleven, animation historians and film scholars are quickest to defend the two 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...
: Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs
Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs
Coal Black 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...
and 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...
. The former, a 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...
-based parody of 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...
's 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...
, is frequently included on lists of the greatest cartoons ever made, while the latter is a hot jazz re-interpretation of Clampett's now-classic 1938 short 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....
. Author Michelle Klein-Hass wrote the following:
Bootleg copies have surfaced on videotape and DVD, and are frequently added to (and - due to copyright infringement - subsequently removed from) sites such as YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
and Google Video
Google Video
Google Videos is a video search engine, and formerly a free video sharing website, from Google Inc. Before removing user-uploaded content, the service allowed selected videos to be remotely embedded on other websites and provided the necessary HTML code alongside the media, similar to YouTube...
. Warner Home Video
Warner Home Video
Warner Home Video is the home video unit of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., itself part of Time Warner. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video . The company launched in the United States with twenty films on VHS and Betamax videocassettes in late 1979...
has issued restored clips of the film as a part of a supplementary documentary on Bob Clampett on disc three of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2 is a DVD box set that was released by Warner Home Video on November 2, 2004. It contains 60 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons and numerous supplements.-Related releases:...
DVD collector's set. In October 2010, it was announed that a complete version will be officially released, along with the rest of the "Censored 11", on DVD through the Warner Archives collection http://www.toonzone.net/news/articles/35331/nycc2010-warner-archive-to-release-the-censored-eleven/.