''Swing Wedding'' is a 1937

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, commonly shortened to MGM or MGM Studios) is an American Film production, film and television production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered ...

Happy Harmonies ''Happy Harmonies'' is a series of thirty-seven animated cartoons distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and produced by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising between 1934 and 1938. Produced in Technicolor, these cartoons were very similar to Walt Disney's ...

'' cartoon directed by

Hugh Harman Hugh Harman (August 31, 1903 – November 25, 1982) was an American animator. He was known for creating the Warner Bros. Cartoons and MGM Cartoons studios and his collaboration with Rudolf Ising during the Golden Age of American animation. ...

. A "sequel" to the 1936 short ''

The Old Mill Pond ''The Old Mill Pond'' is a 1936 American animated short film in the ''Happy Harmonies'' series, directed by Hugh Harman for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio. The short was nominated at the 1936 Academy Awards for Academy Award for Best Ani ...

'', the cartoon portrays a

wedding A wedding is a ceremony in which two people are united in marriage. Wedding traditions and customs vary greatly between cultures, ethnicity, ethnicities, Race (human categorization), races, religions, Religious denomination, denominations, Cou ...

celebrated by a group of

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely semiaquatic group of short-bodied, tailless amphibian vertebrates composing the order (biology), order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek , literally 'without tail'). Frog species with rough ski ...

s in a swamp. The frogs are designed as

caricature A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, ...

s of various

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

celebrities of the 1930s, such as

Ethel Waters Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 – September 1, 1977) was an American singer and actress. Waters frequently performed jazz, swing, and pop music on the Broadway stage and in concerts. She began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her no ...

Stepin Fetchit Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry (May 30, 1902 – November 19, 1985), better known by his stage name Stepin Fetchit, was an American vaudevillian, comedian, and film actor of Jamaican and Bahamian descent, considered to be the first black ...

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...

Cab Calloway Cabell "Cab" Calloway III (December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994) was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was a regular performer at the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he became a popular vocalist of the Swing music, swing era. His niche ...

Fats Waller Thomas Wright "Fats" Waller (May 21, 1904 – December 15, 1943) was an American jazz pianist, organist, composer, and singer. His innovations in the Harlem stride style laid much of the basis for modern jazz piano. A widely popular star ...

and the

Mills Brothers The Mills Brothers, sometimes billed The Four Mills Brothers and originally known as Four Boys and a Guitar, were an American jazz and traditional pop vocal quartet who made more than 2,000 recordings that sold more than 50 million copies and g ...

. Though hailed as "'one of the finest one-reelers in all of animation" by some commentators, others have derided the use of

Zip Coon "Turkey in the Straw" is an American folk song that first gained popularity in the 19th century. Early versions of the song were titled "Zip Coon", which were first published around 1834 and performed in minstrel shows, with different people cl ...

-type figures and stereotypical dialogue (including expressions such as "

Who dat Who Dat (AAVE African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urban communities, by most working- and middle-class African Americans and some Black Canadians. Having its own unique gramm ...

?" and "Yowza!"). The film also contains a controversial scene in which a frog musician uses his

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

valve A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or Slurry, slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically Pip ...

as a

syringe A syringe is a simple reciprocating pump consisting of a plunger (though in modern syringes, it is actually a piston) that fits tightly within a cylindrical tube called a barrel. The plunger can be linearly pulled and pushed along the inside ...

. The scene plays on the

stereotype In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalization, generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can ...

of black

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

musicians using drugs before performing. This cartoon was re-released in a shorter version called "Hot Frogs" in 1942 as a "

soundies A soundie is a three-minute American film displaying both the audio and video of a musical performance. Over 1,850 soundies were produced between 1940 and 1946, regarded today as "precursors to music videos". Soundies exhibited a variety of mu ...

" format.

Plot

Reception

''National Exhibitor'' (March 20, 1937): "The frogs put on a wedding to hot music. Caricatures are made of Negro mannerisms. There appear characters very much like Stepin Fetchit, Bill Robinson, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller. This isn't up to the previous efforts from the Harman-Ising bunch". ''

Boxoffice ''Boxoffice Pro'' is a film industry magazine dedicated to the movie theatre business published by BoxOffice Media LP. History It started in 1920 as ''The Reel Journal'', taking the name ''Boxoffice'' in 1931 and still publishes today, with a ...

'' (Apr 10, 1937): "Against a background of riotous color, Harman-Ising studios have executed a clever satire on the current craze for swing music which is certain to add a bright note to any program. Such famous sepia stars as Cab Calloway a famous American jazz singer, dancer, bandleader and actor, "Fats" Waller a Pianist and Bill Robinson who was a famous tap dancer during the first half of the 20th century these African American musicians and dancers are caricatured as frogs and the resemblance to the millpond denizens is astounding. The musical accompaniment to the gay frog-pond wedding ceremony is delightfully swinging, although the basic tunes are easily recognizable. A distinctly novel color cartoon". ''Selected Motion Pictures'' (May 1, 1937): "A colorful fantasy of the wedding of two frogs. Fine musical syncopation. Amusing though noisy entertainment".

References

External links

*
Swing Wedding
' at the

Internet Movie Database IMDb, historically known as the Internet Movie Database, is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and biograp ...

. *
Swing Wedding Video
' on DailyMotion 1937 films 1930s American animated films African-American-related controversies in film Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animated short films Films directed by Hugh Harman Happy Harmonies Films about weddings Films about frogs Obscenity controversies in animation Obscenity controversies in film Race-related controversies in animation Race-related controversies in film 1937 animated short films {{short-animation-film-stub