Studio: Walter Lantz Productions
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Produced by: Walter Lantz
Short Synopsis
Lazy Town is a sleepy Black town on the river where nobody does anything, drawn in the blackface caricature that Hollywood cartoons used without a second thought. A riverboat arrives and a glamorous light-skinned woman from Harlem steps off, takes one look at the place and starts the boogie-woogie of the title. The town wakes up: the washerwoman scrubs in rhythm, the loafers dance, the whole population swings, and the cartoon becomes a seven-minute jam session on the Don Raye song, with the washboard as the lead instrument, until the riverboat leaves and the beat goes with it. It is one of the most offensive cartoons the Lantz studio made, and it stands as a document of its period, with that said plainly.
Why It Matters
- As a music cartoon it is well made: Darrell Calker's arrangement is the hottest the Lantz studio ever recorded, the dance animation is energetic, and the song, a hit for the Andrews Sisters, is used with real feeling for its rhythm. That is exactly what makes the stereotyping harder to look at; the film is not lazy, it is enthusiastic.
- The film was withdrawn from distribution in the late 1940s after protests from the NAACP and has been out of official circulation since, but because its copyright lapsed it has stayed available, and Spike Lee used clips from it in Bamboozled (2000) as an example of the tradition his film attacks. It is one of the most-cited examples of racist Hollywood animation, and one of the few that anyone can actually watch.
Notes and Trivia
- Don Raye's song was recorded by Will Bradley's orchestra and by the Andrews Sisters in 1940-41.
- The Lantz studio's other 1941 swing cartoon, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B, was nominated for an Academy Award.
- See also: Jungle Jitters (1938), Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943), Tin Pan Alley Cats (1943).
