Wrapping Up Another Case
Ah, yes! There’s a place far away — a world where fat, effeminate policeman warble catchy love songs over patrol car radios, while dozens of cops and convicts foxtrot happily in the most melodic prison imaginable. A care-free place with two thousand year old mummies who dance like animated hieroglyphics, but sing like Betty Boop, and phantom of the opera wannabes who play hot jazz on spongy pianos. Well, everybody plays hot jazz on spongy pianos. Come to think of it, their fingers are pretty spongy, too!
We call this happy domain Early 1930’s Black and White Cartoonland. The film Is “Magic Mummy,” 1933. The studio is RKO/Van Beuren. The stars are Tom and Jerry (no, not the cat and mouse — the human ones with little black sticks where their noses should be.)
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On November 1st, 2006 at 12:00 am
The audio on these old Van Beuren cartoons is usually awful. Anyway, the mummy/singer sounded like Mae Questal. Can anybody confirm?
On November 2nd, 2006 at 12:00 am
Actually, I think it’s Bonnie Poe — who was another Betty Boop voice at the Fleischer Studio. Can anyone out there confirm?
As to the audio quality, the RKO’s are a bit of a hit and miss deal at best. There has been a lot less attention to perserving these as compaired to the more famous big studio films.