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Birth of An Industry: Blackface Minstrelsy and the Rise of American Animation

Nicholas Sammond, Author

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Space, Page 184

MGM's Swing Wedding (1937) is an energetically racist rendering of popular performing
artists of the day such as Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, and Bessie Smith as frogs. One frog is even rendered as a Stepin Fetchit caricature, with the characteristic droopy lip and slurred speech. The wedding escalates violently, bursting the thermometer into flames and prompting the musicians to destroy their own instruments.

These types of caricatures also appear in Uncle Tom's Bungalow (1937) and Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943), both of which are parodies of popular tales: Uncle Tom's Cabin and Snow White, respectively.
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Harman and Eising    MGM    Sound    Color    Warner Bros    Leon Schlesinger    1930s

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