[Editor's note: This post is a completely rewritten article that was originally published on January 24, 2006. In those early days of the blog, the pieces were less detailed and in reviewing the article recently, I decided to expand upon it greatly, feeling I had not given this cartoon as much coverage as it deserved, including deciphering as many of the song lyrics as I could. The first comments at the bottom are from its original posting, but I hope more people take part in the discussion in figuring out this strange classic. This cartoon is a real treat, especially if you like weird or scary animation. Enjoy!] Swing You Sinners!(Max Fleischer Talkartoons, 1930) Dir: Dave Fleischer Animators: Ted Sears; Willard Bowsky; Grim Natwick; Seymour Kneitel; Shamus Culhane; William Henning; Al Eugster; George Cannatta Cel Bloc Rating: 8/9 For the first two and a half minutes of Swing You Sinners!, a rather shocking Fleischer Brothers' Talkartoon short from 1930, you might be forgiven for just thinking this is a generic "cutesy" cartoon and giving up on the whole enterprise. Not that the rubbery animation isn't fun and silly and interestingly done, but in detailing the misadventures of a would-be hen thief who is pursued by a bulldog policeman, it is still rather generic. If you gave up on the cartoon at the two-and-a-half minute mark, you could then surmise that the Fleischer Brothers' Talkartoon series, which ran for about four years from 1929 through 1932, was by turns both routine but slightly inspired. You might think they have the look and feel of having been both professionally animated but somewhat amateurishly rendered. And you would not be wrong on these counts. While the product is fluid in its motion, there is a roughness in their design that is applicable to their New York origins, and not quite as polished (until a few years later) as that of their West Coast competitors.
But to give up on Swing You Sinners! at that early point is to miss a true adventure in displaying the massive scope of animation. Like many of the early Fleischer films, Sinners! can be at times both sneakily commonplace but also “knock your socks off” surreal, even in the same scene. In this particular Talkartoon entry, what starts within a rather average scenario of a small-time criminal attempting to rob a henhouse turns almost literally into a walk into Hell itself. And, as always, one can never be sure of up or down within the oddly contoured world of Max and Dave Fleischer, whether walking down a street or trapped in the underworld of one's guilty imagination.
At the start of Swing You Swingers!, we meet Bimbo, a dog character who was the first talking pictures star for the Fleischer Studios (and was also, for a short time, Betty Boop's official "boyfriend”). Bimbo stands biding his time and acting coyly near a henhouse. When a hen chances to pass by him, Bimbo follows it to the house and tries to steal it. A series of tussles begin between the two, with first the hen ending up in most of Bimbo's clothing, then the two are back to normal, then the two of them ending up switching half of their bodies, and then are back to normal again. At one point, their combined bodies turn into a strange globular mass that twists and contorts until they spring out in a new formation. As Bimbo reaches into the henhouse to grab the chicken, his wrist is nabbed by a disapproving policeman, who Bimbo pulls all the way through the henhouse. When he sees the badge on the policeman's uniform, Bimbo immediately imagines himself first on a chain gang, and that fear transforms in his head into a date with the electric chair. Desperate, Bimbo replaces his own wrist with the neck of the chicken, placing it gently in the cop's meaty paw, and tries to makes his escape. The cop throws the chicken and it lands on Bimbo's head just as the dog was making a break for it.
Bimbo's carefully struts away, but the chicken grabs his nose and pulls it out as if it were on a spring. Bimbo reels his nose back into place by pulling out his tongue. The policeman, following behind, bellows with a series of noises out of his own enormous mouth, but Bimbo keeps moving, all the time punching the chicken so it will go away. But the chicken playfully jumps onto Bimbo's back and crawls down into his clothes, coming out at the top of Bimbo's pants, and looks back at the policeman. With the chicken's feet sticking out Bimbo's pants as well, the bird takes a few steps to send Bimbo moving backwards, as the cop's baton turns into a bugle, which the cop blows in their direction. Finally, the chicken leaps out of Bimbo's pants, as do several baby chicks, who peep like mad and give chase to their mother. (I don't even want to know if they were implying something here.)
Finally losing both the chicken and the cop, Bimbo runs into a generically forbidding-looking cemetery. At this point, any relation between normalcy and this cartoon totally dissolves. Upon entering the cemetery, the gate closes on its own behind Bimbo, the key turns in its lock of its own accord, and a mouth opens around the key and lock and swallows them both. The gate melts and transforms into a wall section much like the others, and a large stray stone sprouts feet and crawls into an open space in the wall. Bimbo finds himself trapped as the tombstones start swaying about him while a mournful dirge begins playing on the soundtrack. The tombstones moan all around the petrified and quaking dog. Bimbo becomes so petrified that a block of ice materializes around his feet, trapping him in place as the tombstones begin swaying to the music. [Note: I originally thought it was a block of stone, until reader Howard – see comments below – recognized that Bimbo must be suffering from cold feet due to fear, thereby creating a block of ice. Thanks Howard! Totally missed that one.] The ice melts into a puddle of water – though it appears to have eyes in it and then crawls away. As Bimbo's knees knock, the tombstones sing their mournful dirge: "Goodbye! This is your finish, brother! You're never going to get away!" As they sing, Bimbo hides his head in the dirt but it comes back out on top one of the graves balancing a bone on his nose, he develops what I believe would be a yellow streak down his back if this film weren't in black and white, and the ground next to him turns into a giant mouth that tries to bite him. Bimbo frantically shimmies up a flagpole, and screams, "Oh, no!" but a tombstone with a face makes itself as tall as the flagpole and answers, "Oh, yeah!" Bimbo falls to the ground, but another tombstone sprouts arms and softly catches him, releasing him to be tortured further. A ghost pops out of a nearby grave and sings: "You'll never rob another's henhouse!" The plot of grass on the grave shoots up to look like the hair on top of a face made of dirt, who adds: "You've sinned, and now you must obey!" [Note: I think the last word is "obey," but may be wrong. I am fairly certain he sings "must" but the last two syllables could be "go pay" as well, but that sounds clumsy to me. Shoot me a note if you believe otherwise.] Once more, Bimbo cries out, "Oh, no!" and this time a chorus of female ghosts and the grave plot sing back, "Oh, yeah!" The chorus sings: "Oh, no, you never rob your brother!" A ghost who looks like Monroe Silver, a popular comedian of the day who employed a Jewish dialect in his routines, turns his palms upward and says, "Ya needed it!" And then the chorus sings: "And now, we'll haul your bones away!" At the song's close, a skeleton puts a "For Rent" sign on an open grave, causing Bimbo to shiver with fright. As the ground tries to drag Bimbo under the cemetery, another section of music begins, and various creatures and objects sing of his litany of crimes, while Bimbo tries to defend himself: Bat: Chickens you used to steal! Bimbo: I don't steal no more! Tree: Craps you used to shoot! Bimbo: I don't shoot no more! Shadow: Gals you used to chase! Bimbo: I don't chase no more! Tree: Get ready, brother -- All: Your time has come!!!
Bimbo desperately tries to escape as the walls of the cemetery march toward and close in about him until he is tight in their embrace, but he squeezes out at the top, avoiding their spikes, and zipping away. He runs to a nearby barn which creates a mouth that swallows Bimbo inside, where a large black hand continually tries to grab him, and ghosts and all manner of monsters sing, play, dance and threaten him through song... "Stand up, you sinner! We've got you at last! You can't get away, there's no time to pray, your finish is g'wine to be fast! Brudders and sisters, come on, get hot! 'Cause I'm gonna take your vo-do-de-o and tie your bones in a knot!"
While Bimbo continues to elude a haunted haystack, the various ghosts, and the black hand, a chicken takes over in the second verse, and then does some scat singing before starting to dance. It's body gets more and more rubbery and its legs stretch out until it is several sizes taller than it once was, filling the screen. Two ghosts with top hats do a quick dance routine, slapping their rears from side to side, and then a strange figure that appears to be a pair of pants with eyes joins in. It splits into three bean shaped figures with legs that strut for a while. An empty pair of shoes clops down some stairs, then the boards from the stairs march away, revealing a pair of ghosts in each step, who sway from side to side.
Bimbo's soul seems to leap out of his body, and splits into two white figures on either side of him. He jumps back into one of them, and then the other slides over to join them. Bimbo runs for it, leaving the barn through a door and slamming it, but the doorknob slides to the other side of the door. When it opens again, Bimbo is marched back into the barn by ghost playing a trombone. The ghost follows Bimbo around while playing an extended solo, hitting Bimbo in the rear with the horn, and at one point pulling out his underwear, which march in step between the pair. At the last second, the underwear turns into another ghost.
The second ghost (that sounds somewhat like Cab Calloway) produces a noose and hangs it in front of Bimbo. It sings... "Brother, you sho' gonna get yo' face lifted --" ...while the trombone ghost whips out a straight razor and adds... "-- and a permanent shave!" All the ghosts gather around Bimbo and add "Ha! Ha! Ha!" Bimbo runs in circles around one ghost, and it spins and spins with his motions until the ghost becomes a barber pole. The straight razor ghost steps from behind the pole and with a terrifying grimace, threatens Bimbo. It takes a swipe at the dog with its razor and cuts the top part of his hat off, but Bimbo's ears reach up and pulls the hat back down in place. Bimbo runs out of the barn and runs down a road where the telephone poles throw a row of shadow crosses in his path. The barn sprouts legs and gives chase. The ghosts pour out of the windows in the form of giant faces, including one that looks like a crazed Uncle Sam with incredibly long hair (though this might be another Jewish stereotype), and continue singing behind the back of the fleeing Bimbo. Dragons and horrid tentacled creatures join in the chase, and what seems to be a mile-long chain of ghosts wave their arms and pursue poor Bimbo up and down over hills until he runs with the full cadre of evil breathing down his neck as he runs into a dark cave. Swing You Sinners! breaks out in its full gory glory, with all manner of dancing, frightening creatures swaying and jumping to the deviant music. All hell breaks loose... "You can't make any excuse! Oh, get square with your goose* 'til we've picked up your noose! Swing, you sinners! You'll make a chicken 'scalope!* You're at the end of your rope, so just give up all hope! Swing, you sinners! We'll stretch you like a giraffe, maybe cut you in half! Just you give up that laugh, Swing, you sinners!" [*Note: once again, if you feel strongly about changes to these lyrics, plead your case in a comment. I am fairly certain of the other lines, but the ones marked with asterisks are iffy to me. It does however, make sense to me that they would threaten to turn him into a chicken escalope, since it is a piece of meat that has been pounded really thin and he is acting like a chicken (and is a hen thief to boot). And also because it sounds that way.] A skeleton hand with a giant knife takes a swing at Bimbo, which he evades, but he is finally eaten up by a huge flying skull. With that gulp, the cartoon ends both shockingly and abruptly, in what I feel is one of the greatest finales in animation history. There is so much that jumps out at you in such a crazed flurry of images that it is extremely hard to recount (or remember) all that occurs in this film without, as I have writing it all down. Even then, I left out many details and bits. As sharp as some of the imagery is, there is also a very sketchy quality to some of the characters, and it comes as no surprise to discover the huge amount of famed animators that actually worked on this film, including the incredible Shamus Culhane and Grim Natwick (though only Ted Sears and Willard Bowsky receive screen credit.) Dave Fleischer's tremendous regard for gags piled on top of gags fulfills itself to the extreme in this marvelously freaky short. As someone who is always on the lookout for great Halloween material, I find this cartoon aces the creepiness test. In fact, with the fact that there is no escape from Bimbo's tragic fate at all, no matter what he does, this might be the ultimate in "scary" cartoons. (At least he gets to go out with a party!) Where most horror related cartoons kind of soft-pedal the scarier images with cuteness, this film and its humor is clearly aimed at adults, and acts that way to boot. What I really like are some of the wilder characters such as the long-haired hat wearer and a couple of the goons shown in the finale that have a touch of Basil Wolverton to them. It does make me wonder if this film, or at least the Fleischers' output overall, was an influence on the famous Powerhouse Pepper, Lena the Hyena, and MAD Magazine artist? As for the oft-touted "surrealism" of Fleischer's early shorts, while it is an often misused term -- where people apply it just because something seems weird or dreamlike to them -- for much of this cartoon the description is most apt, with many of the gags coming completely out of the blue and having no real connection to what came before or what would be coming next.
As for poor Bimbo, he ran into all sorts of problems. Betty Boop, introduced in 1930, gradually became the breakout star of the Talkartoon series, which went away so that the Fleischers could concentrate on Betty's own series. This pushed Bimbo and former silent star Koko the Clown, who jumped from Out of the Inkwell into the Talkartoon shorts, into the background. Bimbo would eventually disappear from the cartoon world, possibly due to the Hays Office. Apparently, they had a little problem with bestiality. (This is odd, since his girlfriend, Betty Boop, did start out as an actual dog character! Look at her earliest appearance and you will notice she has long dog ears.)
This is reaching for it, but I've often wondered if perhaps Bimbo, despite his white face, was also seen by some in the censorship office as a black character, too; while he doesn't have the outrageous physical stereotypes that most black characters were imbued with in the 30's and 40's, he is black in hue. (Of course, so are Mickey Mouse and Goofy, but they are generally living the WASP dream in their cartoons, especially the later ones in the '50s, and I have never heard anyone with a serious argument that they are represent black characters.) After all, Bosko, who started out at Warner Bros., was generally seen as a black character, and he is not much different from Bimbo. When Bosko went to MGM, Harman and Ising, who created the character, turned him fully and definitely into a small black boy for several more films.
So maybe with Bimbo, it wasn't just bestiality that was the concern, but miscegenation as well. The music and references that abound in Bimbo's world also play off of common stereotypical behavior such as crap-shooting, gin joints, robbery, and jazz. If this theory holds, this would imply that he and Betty's relationship was one of a racially mixed couple. If so, I would bet that in the '30s, that would have been almost more of a no-no than just a little dog lovin' to the white establishment. Whatever the reality for Bimbo: Cartoons he used to act in! He don't act in 'em no more! RTJ
My Pal Paul(1930, Universal) Dir.: Walter Lantz Cel Bloc Rating: 6 The King of Jazz? Paul Whiteman? Surely not, though the big band leader from the early part of the 20th century certainly called himself that. And he was a big, big deal back in the 1920s and 1930s, recording scores of huge, popular hit songs, and featuring many of the top musicians of the day in his orchestras (some of whom went on to become stars on their own). Perhaps his biggest contribution to the world was that he commissioned George Gershwin to create Rhapsody in Blue in 1924. If anything remains today of his legacy, it is surely that. Oh, but there is something else, though few outside of animation buffs would consider it to be of note: Whiteman appears in an Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon. And, to make things even, Oswald makes a cameo in a feature film that was produced about Whiteman. See how these things work out? In 1930, Universal Pictures produced a huge spectacle of a film called King of Jazz. It was produced in early two-strip Technicolor and was pretty much wall to wall with lavishly produced sets, costumes, stilted comedy bits, and boisterous musical production numbers. It was also a notorious flop for the day. But there was much of note about the film. Apart from not only surviving the decades in fairly decent condition, the film features a rather young (only 26) Bing Crosby taking vocals on several songs as a member of his vocal group from that time, the Rhythm Boys. The music bounces along merrily throughout King of Jazz, and displays a good cross-section of popular music in 1930, though hardly any of it could be considered jazz as it is understood today. The film won an Oscar for Art Direction, and watching the film now certainly shows the award was well deserved (or at least a nomination would have been). And best of all, not far from the beginning of the picture is the very first Technicolor sound cartoon in history. Directed by animation studio head Walter Lantz, the cartoon is introduced by Walter Brennan, who tells us of Whiteman's travels to darkest Africa. Dressed appropriately in his safari garb, Whiteman is set upon by a lion, and after battling him with a rifle (in which the lion drops his skin and reveals his skeleton before the bullet even hits him), Whiteman seeks to soothe the savage beast through jazz-inspired dance music. The lion dances, the flowers dance, the trees dance, the natives dance, and for a few brief seconds, Universal's big (and stolen) cartoon star, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, dances alongside a snake (who is wearing a derby) while a snippet from Streets of Cairo (you know, the song you sang as a kid that you thought went "There's a place in France where the naked ladies dance") plays on the soundtrack. After an elephant sucks up and then releases the water of a pond rhythmically, a monkey wings a coconut at Whiteman's noggin while he conducts, which makes him see stars. The segment is brief (only around two minutes), but it is goofy and entertaining and gets the moviegoers tapping their feet and prepared for the music to come. The highlight of the piece, of course, is the chance to see Oswald in color (though the only part of him that really changes are his blue pants and red tongue), and long before other cartoon characters received the chance to do so. But Oswald and Lantz weren't done with Whiteman, and vice versa. Universal had Lantz create a short called My Pal Paul, which not only would feature Whiteman and his music in it, but would also serve as direct promotion for the King of Jazz film. When My Pal Paul opens -- with a jazzy melody playing over the credits -- we actually see a billboard promoting the film, that reads "Paul Whiteman in King of Jazz A Universal Release". Between our view and the billboard is a silhouette that we assume is meant to be the rather portly Whiteman, waving his arms as he is supposedly conducting his famous orchestra. Then the silhouette turns around, and it is revealed that it was only Oswald the entire time. From a medium shot, we see that Oswald is performing in front of a group of other cartoon animals, who are watching the Lucky Rabbit torment a cat by playing his tail with a violin bow. And then, because the tails of cats are hollow, as you should well know by now, Oswald turns the cat into a saxophone and blows through the tail for a brief solo. A small baby bear (but don't quote me on that; the ears on some of these critters in early cartoons could represent many things) finds out that behind one of the boxes Oswald is using in his show, the rabbit has hidden a record player, and he is only faking the performance. The baby holds the phonograph over his head and yells, "Looky! Ha ha!" The crowd goes crazy. They start yelling, "Throw him out" at Oswald, and the rabbit leaves dejected. It is always important to remember the year in which something was created when watching older films. A few years later, and the following scenario would never have happened. Oswald, spurned by his barnyard friends, runs behind a tree, crying madly and utterly despondent. From off of the single branch jutting out from the massive tree hangs a noose. Oswald spies the noose and without hesitating, he leaps up to grab the branch and pulls himself up to stand upon it. He pulls off his head, places the loop of the noose onto his neck, and reattaches his head. Holding his nose as he is about to jump into a body of water, he jumps off the branch to kill himself. That's right. We are barely a minute into a cartoon, and the star wants to commit suicide. However, his attempt is unsuccessful, because as he hits the end of the noose's length, he uproots the entire tree (terrible root system, this thing), which falls straight over on top of Oswald. He holds the tree at bay with his skinny cartoon rabbit arms, and yells "Help!" several times at the top of his lungs, straining with the effort of keeping the tree from crushing him. Enter Paul Whiteman. He zooms into view with his Oliver Hardy-like face and his body crammed into a speedy little sports car, honking his horn and making the car leap along with the music. Engaged in his drive, he pulls the steering wheel off and plays it like a flute for a brief moment, before replacing it and continuing on his merry way. That way becomes blocked by a very long dachshund, who stretches across the roadway. This upsets Paul, but the dog is helpful and swings its long midsection up into an arch tall enough to let the car pass. He speeds off but suddenly hears Oswald's cries of "Help! Help! Help!" He runs to the tree where he sees the rabbit struggling mightily with the enormous trunk of the tree. Paul, about four times the size of the rabbit, easily pushes the tree back to standing but just stretching his arms out to place it without moving his feet at all. However, this causes Oswald to go back to being hung by the noose. Paul casually pops the rabbit's head off again, removes the noose, and puts Oswald's head back. All appears well for our hero and his new pal. Or maybe not. Oswald is still sad from the rejection of his friends, and Paul can see it in his body language. He asks, "What's wrong, sonny?" and Oswald answers, "Who wants to know?" Paul stands up proudly, tugs each whisker of his mustache on each side of his face straight out, and says, "Paul Whiteman!" Oswald is astonished. "P-P-P-Paul Whiteman?" This causes Whiteman to puff up his chest to outlandish proportions, and with a tone for each button corresponding on the soundtrack, pops out all three buttons on his shirt and all four buttons on his pants. The pants fall down, and he is revealed to be wearing polka-dotted underwear. He pulls his pants back up sheepishly and quick. "Ha!" says the rabbit. "Get a load of this, Paul!" Oswald runs to the bandleader's car and pulls out the muffler. He starts a jaunty tune by playing the muffler like a trumpet, blowing into the end while magically transforming a section of it into what looks like a derby that he uses as a mute. Partway through the solo, he points at the hood ornament, which reaches down to the grill on the front of the car and plays it like a harp. Paul Whiteman has a very strange moment where he is shown in closeup as he pulls his whiskers away from his face in time with the music. Oswald cranks the engine and causes the hood to roll up so we can see the pistons pump along in rhythm. Oswald has since pulled the crank from the car and starts playing it like a flute. The hood ornament dances on top of the radiator cap to a tribal drum beat, looking for all the world like he is wearing a warbonnet. Oswald moves over to the front tire, where he pulls the valve off and starts and stops the whistle of the air escaping along with the tune. On the last note, the tire pops loudly, sending the rabbit rolling off, and causing the car to collapse. Not to be outdone, Whiteman tries to get in on the fun. Standing next to a sawed off tree trunk, just like Oswald, he can't wait to blow into something else that people don't normally put their lips around. He grabs the tree branch and fingers the holes on the side of the trunk so that it makes horn sounds. Meanwhile, Oswald has picked up another tire and somehow turned it into a stringed instrument. On a helpful cue from a woodpecker within the tree trunk, the pair team up on a short version of the old standard, It Happened in Monterrey. When Whiteman sings, "Broke somebody's heart..." and pulls a large heart from his pocket, Oswald grabs it and sings back in a falsetto, "...And I'm afraid that it is mine!" The following solo by Whiteman raises Oswald's ire and the pair spar back and forth, trading licks until Oswald decides he will determine the winner by laughing, "Ha ha ha ha ha! Nyah!" and sticks his tongue out at Whiteman. Back to the radiator cap, the hood ornament does some nice toe dancing, before the tune changes again. This time, a pair of pliers and a hammer jump out of the toolbox on the back of the car, and take to dancing. They are a nicely matched pair, with their limbs stretching out as it suits their moves, but when the hammer tries to kick the pliers in the rear, it misses and the hammer gets flipped. The pliers jump onto the back of the hammer and rides it like a pony for a measure before the pair return to their gentle stepping from the start of the song. After the hood ornament once again dances to the beat of the tom-tom, we are ready for the finale. Oswald sticks a horn into the tailpipe and four figures much like the hood ornament (they could be musical notes) pop out of the holes on the horn. The quartet link their skinny little arms and start dancing to the popular tune, Happy Feet, marching back and forth and causing music to play as they step across the holes. Whiteman, the tree trunk, Oswald, and the car are then seen dancing together in a line, stomping their feet and jumping up and down to the crazy rhythm. The song switches to Song of the Dawn, with Paul singing "Dawn is breaking and a new day is born!" (It's not really his voice.) For an unknown reason (maybe the rabbit doesn't like Paul's singing), Oswald picks up Paul's car over his own head and then smashes to the ground in a jumble of pieces. Paul immediately looks overhead to see the noose still hanging from the tree and grabs Oswald. He puts the noose back over the rabbit's head and pulls down the rope. Instead of hanging Oswald (it only stretches him upward), the rope pulls the tree further and further down into the ground until both Paul and Oswald have been pinned to the ground by the tree branch holding the noose. Crawling out from under the branch, the two sport huge bumps on top of their heads while each see stars swirling. They look at each, say "My pal!" in tandem, go to shake each other's hands and then purposefully miss, sticking out their tongues instead. "Boop-boop-a-doop Boop-boop-a-doop Boop-boop-a-doop That's Oswald!" Sure, it's cartoon insanity, but for a tie-in that is meant to promote a major motion picture release, they sure weren't worried about showing its main cartoon star as being manic depressive suicidal. It does point to how these films, at the time, were considered for all audiences and not just children. Such details in cartoons would largely go away, as they did in all mainstream fare, once the production code kicked in a few years later. While I like finding odd events like Oswald's suicide scene in these early films, I must admit that the scene bothered me slightly if only because of my own recent problems with depression (part of why I stopped writing on this blog for a few years, all of which is documented on my other blog if you are interested in such things). In the end, the cross-promotion between cartoon and film probably didn't help all that much, given that the film failed at the box office. Still, the music in My Pal Paul (all of which is featured in King of Jazz) should appeal to fans of period music, even if this cartoon is nowhere near as interesting as the previous Oswald release, Hells Heels (written about on this site last week). There is a decided downturn in quality from that film to this one. It does show how even with the same staff working on the same films, inspiration is truly of the moment. And if you had to draw the rather dull Paul Whiteman over and over and over again, you might not feel all that inspired either.
Swing You Sinners! (Max Fleischer Talkartoons, 1930) 
If you gave up on the cartoon at the two-and-a-half minute mark, you could then surmise that the Fleischer Brothers' Talkartoon series, which ran for about four years from 1929 through 1932, was by turns both routine but slightly inspired. You might think they have the look and feel of having been both professionally animated but somewhat amateurishly rendered. And you would not be wrong on these counts. While the product is fluid in its motion, there is a roughness in their design that is applicable to their New York origins, and not quite as polished (until a few years later) as that of their West Coast competitors.
But to give up on Swing You Sinners! at that early point is to miss a true adventure in displaying the massive scope of animation. Like many of the early Fleischer films, Sinners! can be at times both sneakily commonplace but also “knock your socks off” surreal, even in the same scene. In this particular Talkartoon entry, what starts within a rather average scenario of a small-time criminal attempting to rob a henhouse turns almost literally into a walk into Hell itself. And, as always, one can never be sure of up or down within the oddly contoured world of Max and Dave Fleischer, whether walking down a street or trapped in the underworld of one's guilty imagination.
At the start of Swing You Swingers!, we meet Bimbo, a dog character who was the first talking pictures star for the Fleischer Studios (and was also, for a short time, Betty Boop's official "boyfriend”). Bimbo stands biding his time and acting coyly near a henhouse. When a hen chances to pass by him, Bimbo follows it to the house and tries to steal it. A series of tussles begin between the two, with first the hen ending up in most of Bimbo's clothing, then the two are back to normal, then the two of them ending up switching half of their bodies, and then are back to normal again. At one point, their combined bodies turn into a strange globular mass that twists and contorts until they spring out in a new formation.
As Bimbo reaches into the henhouse to grab the chicken, his wrist is nabbed by a disapproving policeman, who Bimbo pulls all the way through the henhouse. When he sees the badge on the policeman's uniform, Bimbo immediately imagines himself first on a chain gang, and that fear transforms in his head into a date with the electric chair. Desperate, Bimbo replaces his own wrist with the neck of the chicken, placing it gently in the cop's meaty paw, and tries to makes his escape. The cop throws the chicken and it lands on Bimbo's head just as the dog was making a break for it.
Finally losing both the chicken and the cop, Bimbo runs into a generically forbidding-looking cemetery. At this point, any relation between normalcy and this cartoon totally dissolves. Upon entering the cemetery, the gate closes on its own behind Bimbo, the key turns in its lock of its own accord, and a mouth opens around the key and lock and swallows them both. The gate melts and transforms into a wall section much like the others, and a large stray stone sprouts feet and crawls into an open space in the wall.
Bimbo finds himself trapped as the tombstones start swaying about him while a mournful dirge begins playing on the soundtrack. The tombstones moan all around the petrified and quaking dog. Bimbo becomes so petrified that a block of ice materializes around his feet, trapping him in place as the tombstones begin swaying to the music. [Note: I originally thought it was a block of stone, until reader Howard – see comments below – recognized that Bimbo must be suffering from cold feet due to fear, thereby creating a block of ice. Thanks Howard! Totally missed that one.] The ice melts into a puddle of water – though it appears to have eyes in it and then crawls away. As Bimbo's knees knock, the tombstones sing their mournful dirge:
"Goodbye! This is your finish, brother!
"You'll never rob another's henhouse!"
Bimbo desperately tries to escape as the walls of the cemetery march toward and close in about him until he is tight in their embrace, but he squeezes out at the top, avoiding their spikes, and zipping away. He runs to a nearby barn which creates a mouth that swallows Bimbo inside, where a large black hand continually tries to grab him, and ghosts and all manner of monsters sing, play, dance and threaten him through song...
While Bimbo continues to elude a haunted haystack, the various ghosts, and the black hand, a chicken takes over in the second verse, and then does some scat singing before starting to dance. It's body gets more and more rubbery and its legs stretch out until it is several sizes taller than it once was, filling the screen. Two ghosts with top hats do a quick dance routine, slapping their rears from side to side, and then a strange figure that appears to be a pair of pants with eyes joins in. It splits into three bean shaped figures with legs that strut for a while. An empty pair of shoes clops down some stairs, then the boards from the stairs march away, revealing a pair of ghosts in each step, who sway from side to side.
The second ghost (that sounds somewhat like Cab Calloway) produces a noose and hangs it in front of Bimbo. It sings...
