Jungle Jitters is a 1938 Merrie Melodies short directed by Friz Freleng.
Plot[]
In an African jungle, the natives are going about their day, with the jungle elements being intertwined with modern-day elements, like the people dancing around a tent when it turns into a makeshift merry-go-round, to the tune of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down".
A traveling salesman comes by to offer them the latest in "assorted useful, useless, utensils." The natives capture him, throw him into a pot of boiling water, and ransack his goods. They proceed to familiarize themselves with vacuum cleaners, batteries, light bulbs, etc.
When the salesman is introduced to the village queen (depicted as a white woman, possibly to avoid any problems with the Hays code over the issue of miscegenation), she takes a liking to him, imagining the cartoon dog as none other than Clark Gable and Robert Taylor. The salesman finds himself with the choice between a forced marriage with the homely queen, or the boiling pot of water. He chooses the pot.
Caricatures[]
- Stephen Fetchit - persimmon picker
- Al Pearce's character Elmer Blurt - salesman
- Bill Comstock's character Tizzie Lish - queen
- Clark Gable - queen's vision
- Robert Taylor - queen's vision
Notes[]
- This is the first Merrie Melodies short to use the mid-1938 rendition of Merrily We Roll Along.
- "Jungle Jitters" fell into the public domain in 1967, as United Artists failed to renew the copyright of the short within the 28-year period from release. A year after falling into the public domain in the United States, in 1968, United Artists removed "Jungle Jitters" and ten other shorts from its package of shorts from the airwaves in the United States due to its racial stereotyping of black people, making this one of the infamous "Censored Eleven" cartoons. Warner Bros. has continued to enforce the ban to this day. Despite the controversy, the cartoon was seen on bootleg public domain video releases.
- This cartoon has never received an official video release due to it being part of the infamous Censored Eleven. Warner Bros. planned to release a DVD containing this cartoon and the rest of the Censored Eleven, but such a release has been delayed indefinitely, though the shorts have been reported to have been already remastered and restored. However, the short is in the public domain in the United States and can be found on DVD and VHS releases of varying quality. While TCM Festivals showed the Censored Eleven in 2010 for an event, this short was one of three not to be shown, the others being "All This and Rabbit Stew" and "Angel Puss".
- This cartoon is indirectly referenced in the 1950 Daffy Duck/Porky Pig Looney Tunes cartoon "The Ducksters," via Daffy mentioning that Miss Shush is Mamie, a 600 pound gorilla who appears in Obnoxious Pictures' "Jungle Jitters". Both the character and film are fictitious; since the original cartoon did not feature a gorilla.
- As evidenced by a model sheet, the working title for this cartoon was "The Fulla Bluff Salesman", a play on the Fuller Brush salesman.
- It is one of three cartoons from the Censored Eleven to enter the public domain in the United States. "Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land" and "All This and Rabbit Stew" are the others.
- Alongside clips from "All This and Rabbit Stew", clips of the cartoon appear in the 2000 film Bamboozled, a Spike Lee movie about black stereotypes.
- Vitaphone release number: 8306
Gallery[]
