Hot Music

Musicians run wild at the end of one of Hugh Harman’s tributes to the black stars of Hollywood in Swing Wedding (1937). Harman made several swing cartoons turning Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong and so on into bullfrogs. The vocal imitations are extremely good.

They launch into a version of “Running Wild” that is so hot, the thermometer bursts. In this scene, Harman wipes in the musicians several ways in the background as the mercury rises.



The music is so hot, everyone is driver crazy. Fats and the other caricatures bash and destroy their instruments or each other.



A trumpet player smashes his instrument into a syringe in a rather unfortunate scene.



Louis Armstrong Frog takes in so much air, he floats into the lake and enjoys a rest in the water as the scene fades to end the cartoon.



Only Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising have their names on the screen. No animators or singers are credited. Even Scott Bradley's name is absent, though copyright documentation from the time shows he wrote the opening theme.