Swing Wedding (1937)

Name: Swing Wedding
Genre: animation
Released: 1937-02-12
Duration: 8 min

Directed by: Hugh Harman
Genre: animation
Country: United States
Runtime: 8 min
Rating: 8.0 of 10 from 2 voters
Elsewhere: IMDb

The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

In this animated short, frogs in a swamp celebrate a wedding with music. The frog characters are caricatures of famous black entertainers from the 1930s.

whimsicallivelydatedstereotypicalmusicalfast-pacednostalgicoffensive

What happens

Swing Wedding is a 1937 MGM Happy Harmonies cartoon directed by Hugh Harman. A "sequel" to the 1936 short The Old Mill Pond, the cartoon portrays a wedding celebrated by a group of frogs in a swamp. The frogs are designed as caricatures of various African American celebrities of the 1930s, such as Ethel Waters, Stepin Fetchit, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller and the Mills Brothers. Though hailed as "'one of the finest one-reelers in all of animation" by some commentators, others have derided the use of Zip Coon-type figures and stereotypical dialogue (including expressions such as "Who dat?" and "Yowza!"). The film also contains a controversial scene in which a frog musician uses his trumpet valve as a syringe. The scene plays on the stereotype of black jazz musicians using drugs before performing. This cartoon was re-released in a shorter version called "Hot Frogs" in 1942 as a "soundies" format. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.