Have You Got Any Castles?

This article contains mature content and may not be suitable for all readers.
This article particularly deals with content blacklisted from contemporary television for containing harmful, outdated racial stereotypes and/or imagery. This article is not censored, as to censor the article would be to pretend that these prejudices never existed.
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Have You Got Any Castles?

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Porky's Party	Love and Curses

Airdate:
25 June 1938 Blue Ribbon reissue: 1 February 1947

Series:

Merrie Melodies

MPAA Number:	Vitaphone Number:
4264	8425

Runtime:

7 minutes, 26 seconds (reissue)

Crew

Voice Characterizations:

Mel Blanc
Tedd Pierce
Harry Stanton
Georgia Stark
Scott Whitaker (archival from Clean Pastures)
The Basin Street Boys (archival from Clean Pastures)
Billy Bletcher^[1]

Director:

Frank Tashlin
Friz Freleng (archival from Clean Pastures)

Written By:

Jack Miller

Producer:

Leon Schlesinger

Animated By:

Ken Harris
Bob McKimson (uncredited)
Volney White (uncredited)^[2]
Phil Monroe (archival and new animation) (uncredited)^[3]
Paul J. Smith (archival)

Have You Got Any Castles? is a 1938 Merrie Melodies short directed by Frank Tashlin.

Plot[]

The short opens on a bird popping out of the cuckoo clock in a library. As the camera pans over, the town crier (a caricature of Woollcott), is seen standing in front of his eponymous book. After a brief introduction, He introduces four monsters: Fu-Man Chu, Frankenstein's monster, The Phantom of the Opera and Mr. Hyde who come out roaring, but then dance a minuet. As characters from other books cheer them on, the globe-shaped protagonist of The Good Earth prays by his bedside. To the right are the books The Invisible Man with an invisible man dancing, Topper (a novel from a series by Thorne Smith, as well as a film series) with a similar theme, The Thirty-Nine Steps has Bill "Bojangles" Robinson dancing down the steps, and So Big features Greta Garbo shuffling her feet. Next comes The Green Pastures which opens to reveal a big band presentation of Swing for Sale led by a caricature of Cab Calloway.

Panning over the cheering crowd, there is a singing Heidi, a literal Thin Man who walks into the White House Cook Book and comes out fat. On the cover of a Great Works of Art book, Whistler's Mother performs literally. The protagonists of Little Women and Little Men sing together, along with the characters from The House of the Seven Gables and a drumming bulldog—a play on Bulldog Drummond. Old King Cole comes in and they sing his praises. Next, Louis Pasteur mixes chemicals from test tubes until they blow up, revealing Pasteur in Seventh Heaven. Captain Bligh from the Mutiny on the Bounty also makes an appearance. None of this pleases a sleeping Rip Van Winkle, who complains that Old King Cole is a noisy old soul while he uses The Valiant Little Tailor's scissors to snip hair from Uncle Tom to plug his ears.

The music gets louder, with The Three Musketeers joining in, Drums along the Mohawk providing a beat, and a character from Mother India piping as he charms a snake. Then, Emily Post (Here billed as Emily Host) berates Henry VIII for his lack of table manners. Irritated, Rip tries to cut off more of Uncle Tom's hair, only to be beaten back. Diamond Jim comes along pitching mortgage payments as the Drums Along the Mohawk beat louder. Henry VIII becomes even more gluttonous with Emily Post ironically joining him and Oliver twists. W.C. Fields with a red nose (a play on So Red the Rose), and the Pied Piper provide more musical accompaniment.

The Musketeers become Three Men on a Horse, grabbing the Seven Keys to Baldpate along the way, and free the Prisoner of Zenda over Aladdin's objections. As they pass The Informer, he whispers to Little Boy Blew who then trumpets, alerting the Charge of the Light Brigade. Robinson Crusoe also fires at the Three Men, along with guns from All Quiet on the Western Front and backup cavalry from Under Two Flags. With the incessant firing, Rip has had enough, and opens a book entitled The Hurricane, which then blows all of the characters into Gone With the Wind.

The town crier reappears, bidding everyone farewell and Rip is shown sleeping on the cuckoo clock, having muzzled the bird's beak.

Caricatures[]

Alexander Woollcott as the Town Crier
Bill Robinson on the cover of The Thirty-Nine Steps
Greta Garbo on the cover of So Big
Cab Calloway
The Mills Brothers
William Powell as The Thin Man
Whistler's Mother
Jane Withers as the Little Women
Freddie Bartholomew as the Little Men
Clark Gable as the residents of The House of the Seven Gables
Louis Pasteur
Fredric March as Mr. Hyde
Paul Muni as Louis Pasteur
Eugene Pallette as Old King Cole
William Bligh
Charles Laughton as William Bligh
Emily Post
Henry VIII
Ned Sparks as Rip van Winkle
The Ritz Brothers
Diamond Jim Brady
Edward Arnold as Diamond Jim
W.C. Fields on the cover of So Red the Nose
Victor McLaglen as The Informer

Availability[]

Censorship[]

After this film's initial release, Alexander Woollcott, the voice of the town crier, requested that his caricature in this cartoon be cut for reissue after his death. The cuts were later restored when the cartoon was released on DVD. The cuts are as follows:
- After the cuckoo clock sounds and the camera pans over the library, the shadow of the Town Crier appears, which then fades out to the books being presented.^[4]
- The cartoon ends after Rip Van Winkle blows away the fighting cowboys and Indians by opening a book called "Hurricane", and then the then-recent book Gone with the Wind pops up before fading out.^[5]
On TBS, in addition to the above cuts made for the reissue, the following scenes were cut:
- Caricatures of Bill Robinson tap dancing in a book called The 39 Steps, and the immediate next scene of Cab Calloway singing "I've Got Swing for Sale", reused from "Clean Pastures".^[4]
  - The scene's unedited appearance on Cartoon Network in the late 1990s into the early 2000s on the installment show, The Acme Hour, makes it the closest a Censored Eleven cartoon has ever made it to airing on contemporary American television.
- Rip Van Winkle twice stealing scissors from "The Valiant Little Tailor" and using them to cut Uncle Tom's hair to use as ear plugs (the second time resulting in Uncle Tom punching Rip Van Winkle in the face and cutting his beard off).^[4]
This cartoon is seldom aired on American television today due to several scenes of stereotyping involving African-Americans and African Natives, Native Americans, the Chinese, and Indian and Arabic people; it has not aired on American television since The Acme Hour stopped airing. It was later released on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2, but the version with the town crier has never aired on American television.

Reception[]

The publication The Film Daily called the short a "fine fantasy", and gave it the following review.

""The story takes place in a library, with all the characters coming to life from well known works of fiction, both classical and modern. Rip Van Winkle is the center of interest, as he cannot continue sleeping with the noise. Finally he gets The Hurricane to blow all the noise-makers back into the covers of their books again, and he goes peacefully to sleep. The final titles show the pop book, "Gone with the Wind". Produced by Leon Schlesinger. Story by Jack Miller. Animation by Ken Harris. In Technicolor.""

^[6]

Notes[]

"The Good Earth" says "Bless Papa Leon...and Uncle Ray...", a reference to Leon Schlesinger and Ray Katz. Katz' name also appears on a book called The Six-Hour Day.
Henry Binder's name appears as the author of a book called How to Influence Cards and Win Money.
The Thin Man walks by a piece of paper with the words, "Ask the boss for a raise" written on it. This is presumably an in-joke directed towards Leon Schlesinger, a notorious cheapskate.
When this short was reissued, the question mark from the original title was removed on the reissue title card.
This short entered the public domain in 1967 when its last rights-holder, United Artists (successor-in-interest to Associated Artists Productions), failed to renew the original copyright within the required 28-year period.
In 2004, the short was restored and remastered for release on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2 DVD set. While this version retains the Blue Ribbon opening and ending titles, it restores the Alexander Woollcott scenes that were cut on the re-release. The restored version uses the 1941-55 rendition of "Merrily We Roll Along" due to using the European Turner "dubbed" version as the source of its soundtrack, which alters the ending music. The American Turner "dubbed" version retains the original 1937-38 rendition.
The featured books include the following:
- The Town Crier
- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
- Fu Man Chu
- The Phantom of the Opera
- Frankenstein
- The Good Earth
- The Invisible Man
- Topper
- The Thirty-Nine Steps
- So Big
- Green Pastures
- Heidi
- The Thin Man
- White House Cook Book
- Great Works of Art
- Little Women
- Little Men
- Old King Cole
- The House of Seven Gables
- Bulldog Drummond
- The Life of Louis Pasteur
- Seventh Heaven
- Mutiny on the Bounty
- Rip Van Winkle
- The Valiant Little Tailor
- Uncle Tom's Cabin
- Castles
- The Three Musketeers
- Drums Along the Mohawk
- Book of Etiquette
- Henry the Eighth
- Mother India
- Diamond Jim
- Oliver Twist
- So Red the Nose
- The Pied Piper
- Three Men on a Horse
- Seven Keys to Baldpate
- Prisoner of Zenda
- Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp
- The Informer
- Little Boy Blew
- Charge of the Light Brigade
- Robinson Crusoe
- All Quiet on the Western Front
- Under Two Flags
- Hurricane
- Gone with the Wind
The caricature of Alexander Woollcott in this short is a human version of the owl caricature in another Tashlin short, "The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos", which was released the year prior, and had similar mannerisms. The theme of the short is similar to another 1937 Frank Tashlin short, "Speaking of the Weather".
In 1997, the original non-Blue Ribbon print of this cartoon was discovered at the UCLA Film and Television Archive by Jerry Beck and George Feltenstein. It was originally planned to be included as supplemental material on The Golden Age of Looney Tunes: Volume 5 laserdisc set, but was scrapped when Turner Entertainment and Warner Bros. were unwilling to co-operate.^[7] This original non-Blue Ribbon print would later be fully restored and remastered in 2004 on Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2 DVD release, although the Blue Ribbon titles are still used.
Throughout the cartoon, various books have different authors those being staff members at the Warner Bros. cartoon studio including Tedd Pierce, Henry Binder, Ray Katz, Art Loomer, Frank Tashlin, John McGrew, Ralph Wolfe, Cal Howard, Dave Mitchell, Keith Darling, Charlotte Darling, Friz Freleng, Carl Stalling, Norman Spencer, Ben Hardaway, Robert Bentley, Frank Powers, Betty Burke, Ann Almond, Melvin Millar, and Tex Avery.^[8]
This cartoon was shown in theatres with White Banners during its original release.