Swing Wedding

Infobox Hollywood cartoon
cartoon_name = Swing Wedding
series = Happy Harmonies


caption = A controversial scene from the cartoon
director = Hugh Harman
story_artist =
animator = Larry Martin
Tom McKimson
voice_actor =
musician =
producer = Hugh Harman
Rudolph Ising
distributor = Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
release_date = February 13, 1937 (USA)
color_process = Technicolor
runtime = 8 min (one reel)
movie_language = English
imdb_id = 0029629

"Swing Wedding" is a 1937 animated musical short by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Directed by Hugh Harman, it is part of the Happy Harmonies cartoon series.

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 once hailed as "'one of the finest one-reelers in all of animation", [qtd. in Ian Conrich, et al. "Film's Musical Moments". Edinburgh University Press, 2006. 23.] many commentators have derided the use of Zip Coon-type figures and stereotypical dialogue (including expressions such as "Who dat?" and "Yowza!"). [Ian Conrich, et al. "Film's Musical Moments". Edinburgh University Press, 2006. 23.] The film is also controversial for a 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. [Jesse Hamlin. "Jazz in the City Benefit." "The San Francisco Chronicle". 21 August 1988.]

This cartoon was re-released in a shorter version called "Hot Frogs" in 1942.

Note

External links

*" [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029629/ Swing Wedding] " at the Internet Movie Database.