Do They Love the Cop on the Beat?

I’m still not quite sure what to make of the opening of Magic Mummy, a 1933 Van Beuren short.

It opens with officers Tom and Jerry listening to a duet on the police radio, little hearts of love floating up from them.



Cut to a pair of policemen singing “The Cop on the Beat, The Man in the Moon and Me” and, um, well...



Cut to policemen dancing with inmates as music is bashed out on the piano.



There’s absolutely no attempt at realism. Look at how the cop’s fingers are bent back. He rolls around while playing; his eyes look something out of a 1915 comic strip. It’s third-rate animation for 1933 but it’s pretty fun. Give me this over the phoney Disney that the studio was putting out a couple of years later.



The song is there to pad for time. It’s not an essential part of the story, which involves a skeleton grave-robber. But disjointed stories are nothing new at Van Beuren.

The cop singers are played by Reis and Dunn, vaudevillians and radio artists, who appeared onscreen in a couple of Fleischer Screen Songs. Artie Dunn later played organ with The Three Suns group.

Margie Hines is the girl singer in this, the Van Beuren raspy voice guy is the Svengali character, and Gene Rodemich supplies another fine score. Here is a medium-up tempo version of the song.