Of Interest

The following is a video of a 1936 Warner Bros. cartoon (in the Merrie Melodies series) called I Love to Singa, directed by animation great Tex Avery.  The cartoon is a parody of a film we watched part of in class on Monday, The Jazz Singer (1928), which starred Al Jolson and was a hit part-talkie.  This cartoon is of interest not only because it provides an entertaining re-telling of The Jazz Singer‘s story, but because it illustrates the popularity and lasting impact the original film had on audiences.  It is also of note because it was released by Warner/Vitaphone, a company we discussed at some length in our sound lecture, and because it is an example of the early mainstreaming of Technicolor, a color process which will become more and more prominent in the 1940s and 1950s and which we will discuss further.  Lastly, the cartoon’s release date (1936), places this firmly in the time period in which the sync-sound technology chaos had finally settled down.

Please enjoy “Owl Jolson” in I Love to Singa: