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Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land is a 1931 Merrie Melodies short directed by Rudolf Ising.

Plot[]

The plucky Piggy must rescue his girlfriend and a doglike Uncle Tom from perilous predicaments and villains. A singing steamboat dances down a river while, on the deck, three blackface caricatures play the song for which the short is named on the harmonica, banjo, and bones. Meanwhile, Uncle Tom drives Fluffy toward the boat by donkey cart.

Piggy is a riverboat captain. Fluffy joins the frolicking steamboat passengers and reunites with her boyfriend, but during the revelry, Piggy falls overboard. The pig has a run in with an alligator, but he makes it back to the boat. Meanwhile, Uncle Tom's donkey bucks him into a cemetery. There, in a variation on a stock gag featuring a superstitious black man,[2] he is scared by three dancing skeletons reminiscent of those in Disney's 1929 short The Skeleton Dance. Tom escapes to the middle of the river, but a shoddy boat leaves him stranded and drowning. Piggy saves the day but not before a vaudevillian villain kidnaps his porcine paramour. Piggy captures the villain on a passing mail hook, leaving the villain tortured over a buzz saw.

Lyrics[]

Open up your golden doorway
And stop. I'm coming your way.
I'm hittin' the trail for Hallelujah Land.
I can see my silver lining. (Daddy-O)
With a passing green reclining. (Daddy-O)
I'm hittin' the trail for da da Land.
(Da da, wa da da do da!)

I sailed away on a miserable day in search of gold.
And I want a pour and store a lot of the sunshine in my soul.
A da da da da my heart beats truer
And skies above are bluer.
I'm hittin' the trail for that there Land. (toot)

Notes[]

  • This was the final appearance of Piggy until 1936, when Friz Freleng revived Piggy and redesigned him by giving him a lighter, more Caucasian-like color with distinguishing birthmarks as well as making him into a gluttonous child that lives with a large family of pigs. The character was discontinued in 1937, with some of his character traits transferred for a time to Porky Pig.
    • Piggy frequently appeared in the outro of the Merrie Melodies shorts throughout most of 1931 to 1932.
  • This is the final appearance of Fluffy, however unlike Piggy, Fluffy did not make a comeback years after this short was released.
  • This cartoon entered the public domain in 1959, being one of three Censored 11 cartoons to do so. "Jungle Jitters" and "All This and Rabbit Stew" are the others.
  • This cartoon is the earliest in the Censored Eleven, a group of eleven cartoons that has been withheld from USA television distribution since 1968 by United Artists.[3] Because of this, the cartoon has never been officially released on LaserDisc, home video, or DVD.

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. https://www.booktopia.com.au/cartoon-voices-of-the-golden-age-vol-2-keith-scott/ebook/9798215217610.html
  2. Lindvall, Terry, and Ben Fraser (1998). "Darker Shades of Animation: African-American Images in Warner Bros. Cartoons". Reading the Rabbit: Explorations in Warner Bros. Animation. Rutgers University Press. page 128.
  3. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1995/did-bugs-bunny-appear-in-a-racist-cartoon-during-world-war-ii Did Bugs Bunny appear in a racist cartoon during World War II?, The Straight Dope, February 5, 2002


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