this was long before cartoons were ever thought of as ‘for kids’, the target audience of this one was roughly 20-40
betty boop cartoons featuring cab calloway singing, yes, but slang has changed so much you dont realize he was singing about opium, sugar daddies, death, weed, sex, booze, and gambling back when gambling was nearly as tabboo as sex and drugs. ‘minnie the moocher’ where cab calloway is a dancing walrus is specifically about someone who does literally everything on that list but die
most of the animation studios had their ‘thing’ to make their animation stand out, disney had fluid motion linked with quality music, warner brothers had top notch dialogue with carefully crafted facial expressions, MGM had comedic timing down to the individual frame that no live action comedian could dream of achieving, terrytoons had the budget of a ham sandwitch and a fistfull of nickels
fleischer studios however had authentic jazz and heavy toned subject matter, often crossing the line of what we think of as ‘cartoon violence’ into realistic
idk why this is making me so emotional???
I love this. I’ve always had a love for cartoons
Cab Calloway, he was a legend performer and entertainer, although he’s listed as a jazz singer he did much more with his voice, his singing style and delivery was very unique. Cab (with his band) was the first black artist to sell over a million copies of a single record and he paved the way for many artists to come. Happy Black History Month.
