It's A Very Special Cel Bloc Xmas: Snow Foolin' (1949)

Snow Foolin' (A Paramount/Famous Screen Song, 1949)
Dir.: Izzy Sparber
Cel Bloc Rating: 5/9

If you have seen any old animated film shorts where a bouncing ball seems to leap from word to word (or syllable to syllable) in along a line containing song lyrics, then you have probably seen a Screen Song cartoon. Screen Songs were animated shorts that were created originally by the Max Fleischer Studios (and released via Paramount) from 1929 through 1938, and were a continuation of a previous series created by Max and Dave Fleischer (under various distributors and contracts) from 1924 through 1927 called Song Car-Tunes.

"Follow the bouncing ball!" was the catchphrase that led audiences to follow along with the lyrics to a song that was featured in the cartoon being viewed. That audience would then sing along at the top of their lungs in the theatres in what I presume would be considered a jolly good time by most in attendance. For me, personally, such behavior in a movie theatre would be excruciating to behold; I like people to just shut up when the lights go down. But Screen Songs were, I imagine, pretty popular in the earlier days of the cinema when studios were looking for any gimmick to get butts in seats. Sure, it hasn't changed one bit from then to now; studios are as money-hungry as ever, if not more. But if some studio or theatre chain decides to give singing show-obsessed Americans free reign to start caterwauling along with music out loud at my local theatre, I may switch to video for good at that point. Audience participation is not for me.

After the Fleischers closed up shop in the early 1940s and Famous Studios took over what remained of Paramount's animation production (including the rights to the Popeye franchise and with many from the Fleischer staff still employed), Screen Songs somehow made a comeback. Famous Studios created their first new Screen Song in 1947, Circus Comes to Clown, which not only featured the old chestnut The Man on the Flying Trapeze, but was also the first film in the series in color.

The Screen Song series had a formula that followed a through-line from some examples in its early incarnation up to the Famous revival. The first three to four minutes of the short would usually be comprised (though there are variations) of a series of simple gags involving actions or characters somewhat related to the subject of the song being featured in the film. After the gags were done, the audience would be led into singing along using the bouncing ball gimmick. The lyrics to the song would appear on the screen, generally broken up phonetically to give the ball even more to bounce upon (and probably to make it easier for the audience to read). The ball (which originally was just a painted ball on a stick in the earliest Fleischer days, but which was eventually totally animated) would leap across the lyrics in time with the music, so it was remarkably easy to learn to sing even lyrics that you had long forgotten (or most likely, never knew). The song would continue until the end of the film, where there was often a final animated gag to close things out on a humorous note.

Since there was usually not much in the way of a story, the Screen Song films themselves are pretty generic, with the only difference being the song selection and the characters chosen for the gag section. In this way, they are also largely forgettable. But circumstances sometimes make some cartoons stick out more than others, even films of a lesser quality. Through the 1980s and 1990s (mostly, but even up to today), VHS and DVD collections of public domain cartoons, usually at incredibly cut-rate prices of only a few dollars, would appear in the cut-out bins of big box stores. I, like many people, cannot resist at least digging through these bins for supposed treasure at the bottom that everyone else has passed over. I bought a lot of cheap cartoon collections this way desperately searching for cartoons that I hadn't already found elsewhere.

And at Christmas, the fervor only grew. I can't even count how many cheap-ass VHS tapes I had with six or seven low quality prints of holiday-oriented cartoons crammed on them in the hopes of finding a rarer film I hadn't seen before. (The lists of films on covers rarely reflected what was actually on the tape, so you were pretty much working on faith here.) And one of the cartoons that showed up most often in these low- rent, dime-store collections was a Famous Screen Song from 1949 called Snow Foolin'.

Built around a sing-along for Jingle Bells, Snow Foolin' starts off with the Screen Songs jingle, an overly chipper tune belted out by what must have been some highly caffeinated singers:

"Start the day with a song
and sing the whole day through!
Even while you're busy working,
do just like the birdies do!

Though the day may be long,
you never will go wrong!
Off key, on key, any old key,
Just start the day with a song!"

After the title card is shown, with a quick bit of Jingle Bells behind it, the gag section opens with a rabbit dressed in a shirt and pants who steps out of a doorway in a tree trunk to look at a calendar that says "Dec. 20" upon it. Stretching and yawning, he lifts the paper to reveal the next date on the calendar. "December 21st," he says. "First day of winter!" He tears off the previous date, but as soon as he does, the rabbit is flattened by a massive amount of snow, as winter literally just drops down onto the landscape in a single blow. The rabbit, now completely covered in the white stuff, pops his ears out of the snow, turns around, and tunnels his way back to his door and slams it behind him.

A bear, fox, and skunk, each dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, run across the frame in front of the wintery background towards a cabin with a sign reading "Fur Storage". The bear enters, and when he comes out the other side, he is fully clad in his normal fur so he may keep warm for the cold months ahead. But when the fox comes out, he is wearing the skunk's fur. It doesn't fit him properly, he is easily twice the size of the little skunk, and he sniffs at the odd aroma emanating from it. The skunk ambles past him, and he is more than covered by the fox's fur coat, dragging the white-tipped tail behind him. This angers the fox, and he swipes his own fur away from the skunk, tumbling him over in his underwear (which is completely different from what he was wearing entering the fur storage, I might add). The skunk is then hit by his real fur as the fox throws it at him, and in seconds he is dressed properly. The skunk stands up and sniffs himself, and then turns to the camera and says pointedly, "Nauseating, isn't it?"

A trio of scowling alley cats are seen next, throwing snowball after snowball from behind a wall built of snow blocks. Their missiles are targeted at a trio of mice running across the snow, and one of the snowballs hits a mouse and covers him so completely that his legs pop out of the bottom of the snowball, and he runs blindly away. The cats continue to pelt snowballs in the direction of the mice, but then the felines duck as the sound of what seems to be cannon fire is heard. A giant boulder of a snowball rams itself into their wall of snow blocks. Looking up cautiously, they see that the mice have a snowy fortress of their own, and have enlisted the aid of a rather cute little elephant. The mice feed a snowball into the elephant's mouth, and then by swatting the pachyderm in the rear with a giant paddle, the snowball rockets out of the elephant's trunk at a highly dangerous rate of speed.

On a nearby skating pond, a mother rabbit skates by, followed by about a dozen baby rabbits mounted upon a single, elongated skate. A penguin wearing a top hat and cigarette holder has a little more trouble staying on his feet but passes by, followed by a stork who switches legs, keeping one in the air at all times while riding a single skate. A caterpillar wearing about a dozen skates zips past, and beneath him, we see through a hole in the ice, that a pair of fish are skating on the underside of the ice (in other words, upside-down).

A pig attempts a figure eight successfully, and shows off his effort, but an ostrich comes forward and does two number fours at the same time, proclaiming "Eight, the hard way!" An alligator has a third skate on the end of his long tail, but his confidence gives way to disaster as he smashes hard into a tree and ends up skating off as a quartet of alligator skin suitcases instead.

A trio of hippos speed down the hill on what a sign declares is a "Suicide Bob Sled Run". A pair of hens sitting next to the sign have all of their feathers blown off when the hippos' bobsled passes by them, and the girls are left wearing nothing but their scarves. The hippos continue their manic run at high velocity, handling the course with the grace of professionals. But suddenly, a mouse on a tiny runner sled handily overtakes them, leaving them to gasp in amazement.

At the top of a very steep hill, a kangaroo prepares to perform a ski jump. Her joey, handling a movie camera, sits in her pocket and is ready to record the action as it happens. All is going well until the mother kangaroo reaches the apex of her jump, and she starts to panic and kick her legs out as she falls to the ground below. She hits the snow-laden ground with a heavy impact, and is completely dazed from her fall. But her joey escaped the crash by being outfitted with a parachute, and he drifts down safely back into her pocket.

A mother hen passes by them singing Jingle Bells merrily. In front of her, the hen pushes a sled upon which lies a carton holding a dozen eggs. As she sings "Oh, what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh," each egg pops open in synchronization with each syllable, revealing in each slot a baby chick wearing earmuffs. Except for the twelfth egg. It bounces up and down unhatched, and the mother hen turns to the camera and asks, "And how about you folks joining in, and singing this merry old song?" As the egg keeps bouncing, she adds, "Just follow the bouncing hen-fruit!"

The egg switches to a more spherical shape and leaps onto a backdrop bearing a Currier and Ives-style sleigh. The ball starts to bounce across the words as we hear a choir sing along as well to encourage the crowd to participate...

"Jing-le bells! Jing-le bells!
Jing-le all the way!
Oh what fun it is to ride
in a one horse o-pen sleigh!

Jing-le bells! Jing-le bells!
Jing-le all the way!
Oh what fun it is to ride
in a one horse o-pen sleigh!"

Of course, most of us know the song, or at least the chorus and first verse, but I have included the lyrics here so you can see how the words were broken up for the sing-along portion of the cartoon. The song continues as the background changes to that of a different image of a sleigh...

"Dash-ing thro' the snow
in a one horse o-pen sleigh.
O'er the fields we go,
laugh-ing all the way.

Bells on bob-tail ring,
Mak-ing spi-rits bright,
oh what fun it is to ride and sing
a sleigh-ing song to-night! 
OH!"

Probably so Famous could reuse animation (it makes sense), the background switches back to the one originally used for the song's chorus, as it is played once again. Then a third background is shown as the cartoon continues on to the second verse of the song (which some, but not all, readers may not know too well)...

"Just the oth-er night,
While rid-ing in my sleigh,
I passed a pret-ty miss,
Walk-ing 'long the way.

I asked her if she'd like
to join me for a ride,
She an-swered "Yes" and soon she was
sit-ting by my side.
OH!"

A third chorus using the original sleigh background is sung, leading into the third verse of the song. This time, the background is that of a young couple basically making out in the back of the sleigh. The song continues...

"We didn't have a care,
Ro-mance was in the air,
It was a per-fect time,
to kiss my la-dy fair.

She did'n't seem to mind,
her heart was light and gay,
and now we're on our hon-ey-moon
in a one horse o-pen sleigh.
OH!"

And now is the time for the big finish. With the rising of a new set of lyrics for the final chorus, the font has changed and appears in all capital letters fully for the first time. If that wasn't enough to excite the graphic designers in the crowd, a tiny snowman leaps onto the screen, smashing the first "Jing" and then proceeds to happily squash each syllable as he makes his way across the first line. At the halfway point, his movements uncover a sleigh in the background. When the second line appears, the sleigh becomes animated, and the horse starts to walk over the top of the words, pulling the sleight and its occupants behind him. They continue across the remainder of the chorus to the song's conclusion, as snowflakes have started to fall and cover the screen.

There is an iris out that takes us out of the song portion and the scene dissolves into that of a turtle wearing a hat, mittens, and a muffler while skating across the ice. Working as a vendor, the turtle calls out, "Hot coffee! Get your hot coffee!" to everyone in hearing distance. A tired sounding, feminine voice asks for a single coffee politely, and the turtle stops below a tree branch and opens his shell from his front (the underside, that is). Inside the turtle, where we would assume his stomach to be, he has a hotplate and a coffeepot, and on the interior of his outer shell, there are five coffee mugs, three of them resting on a shelf in the middle of the shell. The turtle pours a cup, and then climbs (unseen) up the tree to hand the coffee to a cold mother bird on a nest. "Uh," he starts to ask, "I thought all birds spent the winter in Florida?" The bird takes a swig of coffee, and as the camera pulls out to reveal her nest mounted on top of a stove sitting upon the tree branch, she responds in a voice very reminiscent of actress Zasu Pitts, "Oh, dear! At these prices, who can afford Florida?"

Yes, as I stated, this is an extremely generic cartoon, and really not all that clever or funny. This is not to say that it can't be appealing, and certainly, come the holidays, when the airwaves are filled with some increasingly crass material, Snow Foolin' comes off as rather innocent and comforting. You get to see some simple, gentle humor delivered by cutely designed animals, and you get to sing Jingle Bells at the end of it. If starting the day with a song is also your mantra, then you will probably enjoy this. Screen Songs were probably made precisely for you.

As for me, I still have about a dozen copies of this cartoon. And I kind of feel obligated to watch each and every one of those copies every single Christmas. I had better get going on the next one...

RTJ

*****

And in case you haven't seen it:

Cap'n Cub (1945)

Cap'n Cub (Ted Eshbaugh Studios, 1945) 
Dir: Ted Eshbaugh & Charles B. Hastings
Cel Bloc Rating: 6/9

I must admit to a certain fascination with Ted Eshbaugh. IMDb only has the barest information on him, such as his birth and death dates, and a listing of 7 films that he directed in the 1930s and 2 in the ‘40s. At least one of those films is quite well-remembered, The Sunshine Makers, a favorite from the Van Beuren Studios that is not quickly forgotten by anyone that has seen it. He also produced the first film version of The Wizard of Oz that split the mundane Kansas sequence and the fantastical Oz sequence into black-and-white and color sections. (This animated short can be found on the most current DVD of The Wizard of Oz from 1939.)

But not much more is mentioned about him, and there is also little information about Cap'n Cub, a wartime propaganda piece he produced and co-directed in 1945. [Editor’s note: when this piece was first posted on this site, Cap’n Cub didn’t even have a page in IMDb.] In this film, a small bear cub, who is unsurprisingly called Cap'n Cub (which leads me to believe that he is a a cub who holds the rank of Captain), is the head of a troupe of like-minded animals fighting the Japanese menace in the Pacific Theatre during World War II. It's one thing to see rougher-edged adult characters like Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck take to the trenches, or to have a hero of the stature of Superman fighting in wartime; in either case, you sort of expect that they would be brought into service, at the very least to entertain the troops. Even Donald Duck, with his fiery temper, is a decent match against Hitler and his cronies. But, a small, cute, cuddly bear cub? Aren't there age limits for recruitment (forget species limits)? And how did he rise to the rank of captain at such a tender age?

We find out very quickly why this is so, but it is certainly not from the poem he recites at the film's beginning. After a “rousing” (zzzz.....) and militaristic gung-ho song extolling the heroism of the "Army, Navy and Marine Corps" plays over the opening credits, as Cap'n Cub buzzes about the skies in his cute yellow fighter plane, he speaks to us poetically in a squeaky kid's voice, and when he finishes the verse, his voice goes up in pitch with the last couple words:

"I'm Cap'n Cub!
I can sink a sub,
Atlantic or Pacific!
I hate to boast,
But from coast to coast,
They all think I'm terrific!"

There's nothing worse than a kid with confidence and ego, but it was wartime, and if Cap'n Cub could deliver the goods… well, he was better than nothing. Cap’n Cub circles over a field, banks his plane, and runs in for a perfect landing. He hops out of his cockpit, and marches up to his jowly bulldog of a general, whose uniform jacket is covered in important-looking medals. "We're ready for the review, Cap'n!", the general harrumphs, and the pair walk to a podium in front of rows and rows of spectators. The general blows his whistle, and some dog soldiers in a marching band start to drum as their leader twirls his baton. A line of tanks roll in for the review, but these are no ordinary tanks. In fact, they are turtles wearing helmets, and with cannons mounted inside their shells. They start firing in accordance with the review of armory.

The general remembers, almost too late, what is rolling in for review next, and after nudging Cap'n Cub, they both put on gas-masks. We then see why: a trio of skunks pushing stink bombs come into view, followed by a lovely lady hippopotamus, who squirts perfume from a large dispenser as she skips merrily after them. Three puppies roll up with a huge cannon, and they are met by an elephant from the Camouflage Corps, who bicycles up to them disguised like a Good Humor Man, cart and all. He gives them some camouflage paint, and two of the pups (the third is the driver) deftly and quickly coat their sections with the paint. But, it is not normal camouflage cover, for it makes the gun disappear entirely, and so the two pups are left looking like they are sitting in midair. The gun is raised, but we don't see it and only know it is from where the pups are sitting, and fired, and the pups slide down to meet the third, who drives off, making it appear that they are pulling nothing behind them.

"How do you like it, Cap'n Cub?," the general asks."Well, plainly speaking," Cub begins, "what we need are planes, planes, planes, PLANES!!" He pounds his fist on the stage with each repeat, and the scene dissolves to Cap'n Cub pouring over some blueprints with an engineer. The Cap'n next pumps up the production level of planes by manipulating a lever that changes it from "Planes Per Hour" past "Planes Per Minute" to "Planes Per Second". Thus begins the march of the rubber toys, plungers and whatnots down a long chute and into a processing machine, where each is dropped into a cocktail shaker-shaped bin, which, not too surprisingly, is shaken up until the rubber comes pouring out into a contraption that looks like a waffle maker, only here, they come out as rubber tires.

Scrap metal is poured by the bin into a machine that is cranked, and then the scrap comes out the other side as long sheets of metal, at which point they take a conveyor belt journey to a mold in the shape of a plane. Each of the planes is pressed out one by one, and at the end of the ride, the planes have come alive, and their tires roll on to them, which they test out like new shoes. They skate onto a turntable where they are coated with yellow paint, and they dry themselves the way that dogs shake off water. Then the planes each tiptoe over to a pair of technicians, who fastidiously fasten a propeller to the nose of every single plane. (Of course, forgetting about the whole "Hey, let's put an actual engine inside this baby!" part of the process...) The planes then form a conga line that crosses neatly with another conga line of pilots, most of them similar bear cubs to the Cap'n. I say most, because at the front of the line, there is a fat cowboy bear (he might be the Cap'n's dad, for all we know) and a kangaroo, and the cowboy bear hops onto his significantly smaller plane, straddling it where he would normally fit into the seat. (It's like Slim Pickens on the back of that a-bomb in Dr. Strangelove.)

All of the planes take to the air, and in the form of a flying "V", with Cap'n Cub at the point, they fly into some low clouds. When Cap'n Cub comes out, he is surprised to find that he has lost his squadron, and it has been replaced with a flock of ducks. He zooms ahead to retake his position, but ominous-looking planes are spotted not far in the distance. As they inch ever closer, with a subtly Asian flavor overtaking the film score, the Cap'n shouts, "It's the Japs!" Cub starts blaring a charge count on his bugle, and then he orders squeakily, "C'mon, fellas! Get' em!" The squadron charges the Japanese fighters, which scatter and gobble like turkeys with the attack. The fat cowboy bear is shown in closeup, scanning below his plane for the enemy, his pair of six-guns welded to his hands. Finally, he spies his target and swoops down, six guns blazing, causing holes to erupt in the wings of a couple planes. He then takes out four in a line, before blazing off into the distance.

The kangaroo pilot crawls out its seat, laboriously hefting its massive pouch up onto the plane's hood, and then pulls a machine gun out of the pouch. Stepping onto the wing, it fires at a coming plane, which fires back immediately. The shell shatters the machine gun, but the kangaroo has nothing to fear: its baby joey pops out of the pouch, too, blasting a double-barreled shotgun at the Japanese plane, which goes down in flames. The joey turns to its parent, and proclaims proudly, in the popular manner of Red Skelton, "I dood it!"

Cap'n Cub is silently pursued by a single enemy fighter, and when we are given a glimpse inside the plane, the Japanese pilot is portrayed as a long-tailed monkey with buck teeth, slanted eyes, two long strands for a mustache, and goggles (standing in for the requisite glasses). After lining him up in his sights, the pilot fires at Cub, whose plane is only grazed, and is able to bring his cute little plane to rest on top of a cloud. He shouts, "Why, you slappy Jappy, I'll knock ya sappy!", as he shakes his fist at his enemy. Cub attacks, and the Japanese fires shell after shell at him, but even through all the smoke and the bullets, Cap'n Cub escapes. He attacks each section of the huge Japanese craft, circling around wings and engines alike, firing bullets rapidly into them. His plan works: as each section starts to fall away, the pilot has to work strenuously to pull the parts of his plane back together. Soon, every part of the bomber is being held by its wiring by the monkey pilot, and he scurries from section to section as the plane slowly starts to fall out of his control.

The midsection frame starts to spin, and every section fans out around it, and the pilot is spun around like he was on a merry-go-round, as calliope music is pumped on the soundtrack. He pulls the plane together again, but Cap'n cub shoots the bottom out, and the pilot is dropped down, hanging from the cords and jerking as if he were a marionette. Suddenly, he is sucked back up into the plane, slammed into the cockpit seat, and the cords wrap him tight to the chair. Cub shoots away every bit of the plane, except for the seat, the engines, and a bomb, which bounces up and down below the pilot. It finally springs up and hits the seat, there is a huge explosion, and the Japanese rising sun design is displayed in the clouds. With the skies safe for democracy, Cap'n Cub takes the lead of his flying wing once again, and as his squadron spreads out behind him, he flashes the "V for Victory" sign at the camera.

It is unfortunate that the print I was viewing is cursed with about a 10 to 15 second segment where the blazing Technicolor gives way to a washed-out black-and-white. The problem here is that this might be the only print in existence. That said, the rest of the film is as bright as color can be in a film, if perhaps a little too garish at times. Why blinding yellow planes? Why do the characters fire hand-held guns at the Japanese, but not have guns mounted on their planes? I don't know, but, to be honest, these aspects are as much mysteries to me as anything about this film. And Ted Eshbaugh himself. Maltin mentions him briefly in the Van Beuren chapter in Of Mice and Magic on two pages, and when he leaves Van Beuren, Eshbaugh leaves the book too. A search on Google brings about scant mentions of Eshbaugh on numerous sites, but they are generally just a few words here and there, and mostly of the "He directed this film in this year" category. Even his Wikipedia page merely lists his films and says he was "an American animated filmmaker". (I assumed he was animated at some point since he seems to have lived on this planet. Hard to be a filmmaker if you aren't animated somehow.)

Not an enigma, though, is the choice of how to portray the Japanese pilot. It is a sad fact that we seem to have more tolerance for negative racial portrayals in the midst of war than we do in times that are not. This, of course, depends on if the portrayal in question is that of a group which we are fighting. I, personally, do not approve of it. I merely understand it. Is the choice of a monkey for the Japanese pilot unfortunate? After all, it's just another animal in a film full of animals at war. No, the hurt comes not from the choice of animal for the portrayal (though its frenetic antics are meant to jibe with those of a Japanese individual), but mainly derives from the facial features with which the character is imbued. These features come to the fore in many wartime pictures, either as direct representations of either Emperor Hirohito or Prime Minister Hideki Tojo (who both wore small round glasses) or of the Japanese race in general.

The prime example of this hesitancy to denounce such actions may be found in Disney's choice to release How To Be A Sailor on their The Complete Goofy DVD set. Let me preface this by saying that I want this short to be on DVD. The bulk of the cartoon is humorous, it just happens to end with a quick burst of wartime xenophobia, as Goofy takes to the seas to sink a fleet of Japanese submarines endowed with giant glasses, thin mustaches and big buck teeth. You know, the things that the Japanese put on all of their modes of transport. As said, I want this short to be on DVD, but I want it in a collection, like their On the Front Lines set, which children are less apt to play, and one in which proper historical context can be explicitly displayed and discussed. But, to wake up one morning, and wander out to the living room to find your 5-year old nephew watching the Goofy set, and worse, coming to that moment in the cartoon? There were looks of embarrassment all around the room, but the moment whisked right past my nephew. But, what if he were a few years older, and ran into that film? Would he have been more likely to pick up on such stereotypes? I know that the Goofy set wouldn't be "Complete" without that film, and I certainly don't want it edited, but they could have hidden it via Easter Egg or gotten Leonard Maltin to provide some context, since it is the "character" sets, like Donald, Goofy and Mickey, that parents are most likely to purchase for their family's viewing.

And yet, Disney still won't release Song of the South, with or without proper historical context. Are they picking and choosing which racial groups they will upset and those they won't?

[Editor’s note: The text and photos in this article were updated on 11/2/2015.]