Better yet, if you live in the Los Angeles area, track down animator Milt Gray. Milt will not hesitate to educate you on the merits of this cartoon.More to the point, given that Mr. Gray knew Bob Clampett for many years, Milt will be glad to tell you that Bob was not a racist.And neither was “Coal Black” ‘s storyman Warren Foster.
Truth be told, the real origins of this classic cartoon parody came from Clampett's studying the caricatures in the book, "Harlem As Seen by Hirschfeld.”Hirschfeld's exaggerated artistic caricatures, of course, later inspired Disney animator Eric Goldberg's work on "Aladdin" and "Fantasia 2000.”
In addition, Clampett attended Duke Ellington's 1941 live musical revue, "Jump for Joy." After the show, Ellington & the cast suggested Clampett make a musical cartoon that focused on "black" music. To prep for this project, Clampett had his animation unit take a couple of field trips to "Club Alabam,” a Los Angeles area club that catered to African Americans. So that they could then get a feel for the music & the dancing that one often heard & saw when visiting a "black" nightclub.
To given “Coal Black” some additional authenticity, Clampett originally wanted an all-Black band to provide music for the short. But producer Leon Schlesinger nixed that idea refused for monetary reasons. Which is why the film was eventually scored by Carl Stalling.
But that didn’t stop Bob from trying to give this short an authentic “black” sound. Which is why Clampett eventually hired an all-black band -- Eddie Beals and His Orchestra -- to record the music for the “Waking up So White” sequence in the cartoon.
With the hope that having just the right voices for his characters might give “Coal Black” some additional authenticity, Bob even hired African American actors to perform the lead roles in his film. Clampett hired Vivian Dandridge (I.E. The sister of African American actress Dorothy Dandridge) to voice "So White" and then hired Ruby Dandridge (I.E. Dorothy & Vivian’s mother) to voice the wicked Queen. Bob even recruited Zoot Watson to do the voice of "Prince Chawmin" while Mel Blanc provided all of the other voices in the picture.
Now – over the years – many animation fans have wondered why this Bob Clampett cartoon is called "Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs" if the main character in the picture is referred to as "So White"?Well, producer Schlesinger feared that calling the cartoon "So White" would be just too close to the title of the Disney original. Which is why a change was eventually made in the cartoon’s title but not in the cartoon itself.
Most animation scholars and historians consider "Coal Black" an undisputed masterpiece for good reason.Animation is an exaggerated reality, especially in the world of Bob Clampett. And so the characters in the film were just as exaggerated and stereotyped as any other Clampett cartoon character. But there is a dignity and intelligence to the characters in "Coal Black" that somewhat offsets the racial images that were a common cartoon "shorthand" at the time.(Let’s not forget that several Mickey Mouse black and white cartoons that were made back in the 1930s also feature large lipped, savage, stupid cannibals, for instance.)
More importantly, “Coal Black” captures some of the high energy spirit of Black Culture of the time.Let me add that the Black performers who participated in the production of this cartoon found it hilariously entertaining. Just as Nick Stewart (AKA the voice of B’rer Bear in Disney’s “Song of the South”) was not embarrassed nor ashamed by his work in later years.
Unfortunately, back in the 1960s, this cartoon was consigned to the "Censored 11." Which meant that it wasn’t to be seen on television or in theaters. In spite of “Coal Black” ‘s many virtues, which included showing African Americans in uniform defending their country. Which is something that you usually didn’t see in motion pictures made during this time.
Moving on now to one of the other Disney parodies that Mr. Hill discussed as part of last week’s “Making Fun of the Mouse” series, “Beanyland” … Disney historian Jim Korkis was a friend of Clampett's and interviewed him extensively over the years. One of those interviews focusing on the "Beany and Cecil" animated show will be appearing in a forthcoming issue of "Hogan's Alley" (Issue #14, which is due out next month).
In exchange for giving “Hogan’s Alley” a rather gratuitous plug in today’s article ("Hogan's Alley" is an outstanding magazine, one that’s devoted to covering the history of animation & cartooning. Past issues have featured detailed interviews with Disney legends Bill Peet, Marc Davis and Ward Kimball. If you’d like to see why animation fans have been raving about “Hogan’s Alley,” for a limited time, you can pick up a sample back issue for half price! For further information, click on this link), I get to share an excerpt from Korkis’ upcoming interview with Clampett.
Looking back on this particular episode of “The Beany & Cecil Show,” Clampett recalled:
“ABC got very upset about ‘Beanyland’ because -- of course -- they had been running the ‘Disneyland’ television program and other Disney programs. And they didn’t want to make Walt mad because there were some legal things going on where Disney was leaving ABC.
“Oh, you can’t have a caricature of Walt Disney in there saying, ‘I’ll make this my DismalLand’!’I’d answer, “Where’s Walt Disney in there?The character with the hook nose and mustache is my longtime villain Dishonest John.Everybody knows who he is.”
My original version of “Beanyland” was very, very funny because it was such a tongue-in-cheek satire on Disneyland even as to the way they worded their advertising.Beany would say stuff like “Look, what he’s doing to my creamy, dreamy Beanyland!” And that made fun of those peanut butter commercials.
I had Dishonest John packaging the moon as cheese and bringing it back to Earth to sell it.On the package, I had the word “Krafty” and ABC was afraid the Kraft Cheese Company would sue them.It was those kinds of things they censored and so much more for seemingly no reason.This place wasn’t built by a mouse; it was built for mice!”
This story was later adapted for the April-June 1963 DELL "Beany & Cecil" comic book, which illustrated by Willie Ito, an artist who worked for Disney Feature Animation back in the 1950s. Where Ito helped animate the spaghetti-eating sequence in "Lady and the Tramp.” In the comic book version of this episode, they show a much more detailed map of "Beanyland." And it features a "Rock and Roller Coaster" & a "Go-Man Chinese Theater" decades before Disney actually built those attractions in Florida.
Getting now to another classic cartoon that Jim covered in his “Making Fun of the Mouse” series ... Jay Ward's "Fractured Fairy Tales" version of "Sleeping BeautyLand" also has some Disney history behind it.It was directed by Bill Hurtz who joined Don Graham's life drawing class at Chouinard Art Institute when he was thirteen years old and got flustered by seeing a nude model for the first time.He joined the Disney Studios in 1938 and worked on "Pinocchio," "Fantasia" (the mushroom dance sequence) and "Dumbo.”When he went on strike with other Disney animators, he was fired and eventually wound up at UPA. In 1959, he became a senior director for Jay Ward's animation studio.
"(“Sleeping Beautyland”) was a take-off on Disneyland and I purposely caricatured the prince as Walt Disney and we had Daws Butler do his Phil Silvers type voice which was the standard sneaky but friendly con man," Hurtz told me when I was interviewing him for a never-published book about the Jay Ward cartoons.
Mind you, Ward didn’t only make fun of Walt Disney. As animation legend June Foray (Who did the voice of the princess & the evil fairy in this particular “Fractured Fairy Tale”) once told me: "Jay's cartoons offended nations, school teachers, weather bureaus, everyone."
In fact, Ward loved controversy and parodied historical figures, media celebrities, literary artists and any other visible targets. When actor Durwood Kirby threatened to sue over a "Rocky & Bullwinkle" item called the "Kurwood Derby,” Ward welcomed the attention to his struggling series.
There was the belief at the studio that the Disney parody where an "X coupon" would get you across the bridge of "Moat Land" in front of the castle, a "Y Coupon" would get you into "Entrance Hall Land" and a "Z Coupon" would get you up "Staircase Land" to see the Sleeping Beauty might raise the ire of the Disney Company and generate some publicity. But Disney chose to ignore the cartoon.
There are other classic cartoons out there that make fun of Disney films (I mean, how could Jim forget Marv Newland’s classic "Bambi Meets Godzilla?). But – given that Mr. Hill is supposedly already hard at work on yet another installment of his “Making Fun of the Mouse” series – I suppose we can overlook the few films that seem to have eluded his grasp so far.