Yeah, there are some similarities between this 1931 Merrie Melodies short and the Disney cartoon made four years before. The one big difference is sound, and the peppy theme song by Charles O’Flynn, Jack Meskill and Max Rich. Smile, Darn Ya, Smile! was published by De Sylva, Brown and Henderson at the same time as the hits Just a Gigolo and Walkin’ My Baby Back Home. It was doing well in sheet music sales in May 1931, according to Variety, so this cartoon would have lent an extra push.
Another big difference between this and the silent Oswald cartoon is the cop-out ending. It turns out Foxy is only dreaming he’s in an out-of-control streetcar, and falls out of bed. His radio serenades him with the theme song, arms out like Al Jolson. His reaction? He kills it with a bedpost and laughs as the iris closes.
Yeah, as if your dream is the radio’s fault.
So long, folks! Well, not quite. There were two more Foxy cartoons before he vanished for good.
Abe Lyman’s Brunswick Recording orchestra apparently recorded the music track. I wonder when and where he did it. He wasn’t spending a lot of time in Los Angeles in 1931. At the time of the cartoon’s release, he was on the bill at the Palace in New York and had begun broadcasting over CBS via WABC.
I remember some early B&W Looney Tunes with a Jester saying " So long, Folks ". Very rare.
ReplyDeleteAnd note the radio having an electrical plug-in cord.
ReplyDeleteWhich was not long after Canadian inventor E. S. "Ted" Rogers introduced the Rogers Batteryless, the world's first plug-in radio, in Toronto (Canada) in 1925.
Smile, darn ya, smile
ReplyDeleteYou know this great world is a good world after all
Smile, darn ya, smile
And right away watch lady luck pay you a call
Things are never black as they are painted
Time for you and joy to get acquainted
So make life worthwhile
Come on and smile, darn ya, smile
If your hearing this song in your head, its because it was revived at the end of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", sung by the ensemble