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Tin Pan Alley Cats is a 1943 Merrie Melodies short directed by Bob Clampett.
Title[]
The title is a play on both the "Tin Pan Alley," a group of songwriters and music publishers whose work was very prevalent in late 19th and early 20th century American culture, and "alley cat," a stray cat that roams a town for food and shelter.
Plot[]
A cat goes out on the town. He is about to enter a club when a street preacher and his mission warn him that he will be tempted with "wine, women, and song" if he goes in. However, rather than getting shocked, he instead gets very excited. "Wine women an' song? What's de matter wid dat?" He runs into the club. At first, he enjoys the club, but he becomes so immersed in the music playing that he's carried "out-of-this-world" to a manic fantasy realm filled with surreal imagery. It frightens him so much that, when he wakes up, he gives up his partying ways and joins the religious music group that is singing outside, much to their surprise.
Caricatures[]
- Fats Waller
- Louis Armstrong
- Al Jolson - duck
- Hideki Tojo
- Adolf Hitler
- Joseph Stalin
Music Cues[3][]
- By the Light of the Silvery Moon (Music by Gus Edwards & Lyrics by Edward Madden)
- Composed by Eddie Beal and sung by Audrey Flowers, Eddie Lynn, and Carl Jones
- Give Me That Old Time Religion (traditional)
- Sung by Audrey Flowers, Eddie Lynn, and Carl Jones
- Nagasaki (Music by Harry Warren & Lyrics by Mort Dixon)
- Sung by The Basin Street Boys and Harland C. Evans
- Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals (by Raymond Scott)
- Plays during the elevator sequence
Notes[]
- This short is a follow-up to Bob Clampett's successful "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs", released earlier in 1943.
- This short focuses on contemporary themes of African-American culture, religion, jazz music, and World War II.
- The short's centerpiece is a fantasy sequence derived from Clampett's black-and-white Looney Tunes short "Porky in Wackyland" (1938).
- This cartoon has been banned from television airings since 1968, thus being a part of the Censored Eleven.
- A brief portion of this cartoon appeared in the documentary "The Man from Wackyland: The Art of Bob Clampett" on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2 DVD.
- A short clip of the redrawn Wackyland characters and the animation of the Rubber Band were later reused in "Dough for the Do-Do".
- The Rubber Band would later become a recurring set of characters in Tiny Toon Adventures. This cartoon is the debut appearance of the band, although it is often attributed to originate from Wackyland from "Dough for the Do-Do" due to the controversial nature of this cartoon.
- The "Nagasaki" scene reuses the song from "September in the Rain" along with some of the animation from the cartoon that was previously used in "Clean Pastures".
- This short is the final Warner Bros. cartoon to have the Vitaphone release number appear on screen under the opening titles.
- This short is one of the few that credits Bob Clampett as the aforementioned name instead of "Robert Clampett".
Gallery[]
References[]