I love to Singa

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Movie
German title The night club owl
Original title I love to Singa
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1936
length 8 minutes
Rod
Director Tex Avery
production Leon Schlesinger
music Norman Spencer

I Love to Singa is an American cartoon by Tex Avery from 1936. It tells of a young owl named Owl Jolson who prevails against her father's will and becomes a jazz singer. The eight-minute short film produced using the Vitaphone process is part of the Merrie Melodies , one of the two Looney Tunes film series . It was published on July 18, 1936.

action

Professor Fritz Owl, an owl, is a music teacher. He teaches singing, piano and violin, but, as he expressly points out on a sign in front of his house, not in the jazz style . He has had four offspring, and the newly hatched chicks also immediately demonstrate their musical talent. The first three present themselves as a singer, violinist and flautist in the classical style , which the father benevolently comments with "a Caruso ", "a Fritz Kreisler " and "a Mendelssohn ". The fourth chick, on the other hand, begins to sing a jazz song called I Love to Singa . The father angrily interrupts him with the words “a crooner ” and immediately tells the mother, who has fainted, the way to go: if the little one really wants to sing, then only in the way his parents decide. The mother begins to give him traditional singing training and teaches him the folk song Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes . The little one gets on with it unwillingly and more badly than right, but uses every opportunity that presents itself to put his jazz song in between. The father, who notices this, throws him out of the house. The mother considers the father's reaction to be excessive, which the father then realizes. The police are called in to find the boy, but to no avail.

The latter sees the expulsion less dramatically, since he can now pursue his musical inclinations unmolested, and so he walks away dancing, singing and whistling. Soon he arrives at a radio station. There is currently an audition for a talent competition taking place, and he joins the queue of those waiting. The juror , a rabbit, is not particularly satisfied with what the applicants have presented to him. After just a few bars, he pushes one after the other out of the studio through a trapdoor . Only when the little owl, who now introduces itself as Owl Jolson with a business card , starts his song, is he enthusiastic. A smile goes over his face and he immediately puts the winner's cup of the competition on his table.

The owl parents heard their boy's appearance on the radio. With the three other boys in tow, they rush to the transmitter and arrive there while their boy is still singing. He sees his parents watching through a pane of glass, interrupts his song and instead continues with what his mother had taught him. The rabbit is not impressed by this: he immediately puts the goblet away and wants to pick up the gong that always precedes the opening of the trap door. The owl family storms into the recording room just in time. The father now realizes that jazz is the right thing for his boy and asks him to pick up his favorite song again. He complies with the father's request, the rest of the family joins in with I Love to Singa , and finally the winner's cup is presented.

Speaker and draftsman

The roles of Owl Jolson are shared by Tommy Bond (speech) and Johnnie Davis (vocals). Father ( Billy Bletcher ) and mother Eule ( Martha Wentworth ) speak their English with a clearly recognizable German accent and a Yiddish touch. A blue bird (which deviates from the graphic representation as a grasshopper ), which stutters and tries to perform the first lines of the English nursery rhyme Simple Simon , finally gives up and gives up, has a much longer appearance than the other failed participants in the competition then operated the gong by hand and pulls the cord that opens the trapdoor under his feet. He is voiced by Joe Dougherty, the original voice of the stuttering pig Dick .

For the animation recorded Charles Jones and Virgil Ross responsible.

Relationship with Al Jolson

The artist's name of the owl, Owl Jolson, was designed in a clear reference to a jazz singer known at the time the film was made by the name of Al Jolson . In his youth he also had difficulties in asserting his musical ideas against his father, a chasan . This constellation was implemented in the film The Jazzsinger from 1927, in which Al Jolson played the leading role. The title song I Love to Singa , written by Harold Arlen and EY Harburg , also has a reference to Al Jolson: he is best in the feature film The Singing Kid , also from 1936, in a duet with Cab Calloway . During the course of the film, the song is played briefly two more times. At that time it was quite common for Schlesinger to borrow from other company films in the animated films he produced for the Warner Brothers .

backgrounds

The radio show that Little Owl appears on is modeled after Major Bowes' Amateur Hour , which aired between 1934 and 1952. Their original host, Edward Bowes, was known for his impatience. He used to interrupt actors who were in his opinion untalented abruptly with a gong or a bell. Bowes is also explicitly mentioned in the lyrics of the song. The name of the rabbit who acts as a juror is Jack Bunny, a reference to Jack Benny , who is also the presenter of a radio show.

In the first episode of the first season of the cartoon series South Park , titled Cartman and the Anal Probe , the character Cartman is hit by the beam from an alien spaceship. He then begins to sing like Owl Jolson.

In the 2003 feature film Looney Tunes: Back in Action , short excerpts from the film are shown several times. This takes the form of a disturbance that occurs when the character Mr. Chairman tries to contact his assistants via telecommunications.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jolson and Cab Calloway in “The Singing Kid” ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Information about Al Jolson and Cab Calloway in The Singing Kid on a website about Al Jolson's work, with excerpts from the three versions, accessed on May 18, 2014 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / jolsonville.com