Summary: A local theater holds an amateur night, where
the acts stink out loud and only the best of the worst can win it (so...it’s an
updated version of Into Your Dance from 1935). All the while,
Egghead keeps interrupting with his rendition of “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the
Mountain When She Comes” and getting pulled by the “get off the stage” hook
that is a trope on cartoons like this (I know a more-or-less modern version of
this is The Sandman [a man dressed as a circus clown] sweeping off bad acts
with a push broom on episodes of Showtime at the Apollo).
Fun Facts:
-
The Four Daughters mentioned in the marquee gag at the
beginning is a real movie. It’s a 1938 romantic drama about a charming, young
stranger and his bitter, cynical composer friend upending the lives and loves
of a happy, musical family. The four daughters were played by Gail Page and The
Lane Sisters (Priscilla, Rosemary, and Lola).
-
Phillip Kramer, a radio comedian known for his work on the radio show, The
Grouch Club, was the voice of the canine emcee in this short.
-
This cartoon premiered alongside the feature film, They Made Me a
Criminal, starring John Garfield, Claude Rains, and a group of New York
City Broadway actors known as The Dead End Kids (and also known as The East
Side Boys, The Tough Little Guys, and The Bowery Boys). It was also directed by
Busby Berkeley, who is known more for doing musical films featuring elaborate,
geometric set pieces and beautiful showgirls on parade. You probably have heard
of some of them: 42nd Street, Footlight Parade, Gold
Diggers of 1933, Dames, and Fashions of 1934.
The Channel(s): BBC (as part of Rolf Harris Cartoon Time)
Part(s) Edited: Hurray, it’s yet another edit done for
time/more commercials rather than for objectionable content (though,
considering that the United Kingdom is stricter in what’s appropriate for
children’s/family audiences than the United States is, an argument can be made
that the “Four Daughters with Selected Shorts” pun could be considered risqué,
but that’s by American standards, not UK). When this cartoon aired on the BBC’s
show Rolf Harris Cartoon Time (now considered problematic since the show’s host
was later outed to be a paedophile [spelling it the British way this time
around. I know this isn’t the American way]), the beginning with the Four Daughters marquee and the band
warming up was cut, going straight from the titles to the canine-looking host
introducing the show and Egghead twice interrupting with “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round
the Mountain” before getting the hook…twice.
What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): Like many edited for syndication cuts before
it, just the fact that there’s nothing about the cut that would warrant the
scene being cut other than “We need to trim this for time.” On top of that, cutting
it so that way it starts with the host introducing the show doesn’t make or
break the scene. Viewers will still know (by virtue of the title and what the
new opening scene is) what’s going on. Then there’s the fact that Swami River’s
act was never cut on UK TV, despite the UK having rules against showing content
that could be insensitive to minority audiences, and that does include outdated,
stereotypical depictions of racial and ethnic groups that were once okay to
show, but now aren’t. If HBO Max in the U.S. could pull “Hamateur Night” for
that reason (meanwhile, MeTV didn’t censor that scene and Tubi actually showed
the cartoon, despite not airing many WB shorts with racial and ethnic
stereotypes and showing “Believe It or Else” with edits – stay tuned for that
one), then what exactly was stopping the UK from doing the same?
Video Comparison:
Availability Uncut: Bad news: its physical media history doesn’t
look too good. It was on the Golden Age of Looney Tunes laser disc and VHS in
the early 1990s (both on volumes centered around Tex Avery’s best work at
Termite Terrace) and didn’t get another release until 2023, where it appeared
on the second volume of the Looney Tunes Collector’s Choice set, as well as the
repackaged version from 2024 that includes all four volumes. Good news: it’s a
public domain short (has been since 1967), so you can watch it on YouTube, other
video sites, and the occasional gray-market home media release.
Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Yes. As I mentioned before, this was on HBO
Max for a limited time in 2020. A year after that, it was streaming on
WarnerMedia RIDE until 2023, which did seem to welcome some controversial shorts,
but not all of them. Since 2025, “Hamateur Night” is on Tubi’s Looney Tunes channel,
uncut, uncensored, and remastered.
‘Til next time, stay Looney and be Merrie.
No comments:
Post a Comment