Betty Boop 1933 Cab Calloway "The Old Man Of the Mountain"

"The Old Man of The Mountain" is non-stop Cab from beginning to end. He appears first as an owl, singing the title song. The words have been changed for the cartoon, in which the Old Man is a villain. In the original song, the Old Man is a benevolent character. Next we see Cab as the Old Man himself, rotoscoped and singing, "You Gotta Hi-De-Hi," followed by "The Scat Song."

The cartoon begins with live footage of Cab and his Orchestra playing around with the tune of Minnie the Moocher while Cab scats mildly and grins at the camera. Whereas Cab may have been caught by surprise when they used live footage of him in the earlier cartoon, "Minnie the Moocher", this time he is ready. He and his band are in dress white uniforms, Cab's hair is slicked back, and he pays attention to the camera. (The drummer, Leroy Maxey, is still playing with his drumsticks, though!)

Of the three cartoons starring Cab Calloway, this one has the least interesting and least surreal plot, and the animation is the crudest. Never-the-less, the very early live footage of Cab is a treasure, and this cartoon showcases his music from beginning to end, featuring three of his songs. He does some of his most remarkable ever scat singing in this version of The Scat Song.

In all of the Fleisher cartoons, Cab's characters are set in caves with menacing and ominous background illustrations: skeletons, skulls, ghosts, leering faces, and gambling, alcohol and drug paraphernalia. People have claimed that the Fleischers were unaware of the drug references in Cab's songs (for example, "kicking the gong around" meaning "smoking opium"), but the imagery in the animations suggests otherwise.
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SOURCE : http://www.heptune.com/oldmanbb.html
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Category:

Music

Tags:

• Betty Boop
• 1933
• Cab Calloway

[MissyLouTheCow]

see how much better things were when people actually had to draw stuff not use computers

[RainingBlackDolls]

I laughed my ass off at the fish. XD

[kdreamland]

man I know this is only a cartoon, but as soon as Betty appears at 2:15 I wanted to take care of business with her....

[wasabithecat]

@ferretyluv the rotoscoping is mixed. like at 5:04

[Kartoonkid95]

LOVE DAT OWL

[SayBinidus]

So... all humans and animals dance syncroniously to jazz, bears wear long underwear, male fish are suckers for a pair of legs, people can hide booze in their facial hair, women's clothing try to protect their modesty, cows can give birth to old man babies, living in mountains makes you taller and give you super strength and a good singing voice, animals can tie people's extremities into knots, etc... and it still makes more sense than Spongebob Squarepants.

[FrostyRSIFX]

3:02 That's the same thing I do when I get confused

[BandWagon1987]

@wasabithecat Yes

[musculermigit]

@IIXairII wow cool ty

[IIXairII]

@musculermigit Tim Burton got his inspiration by many old school cartoons and movies, wouldn't be surprising this is where it comes from. More than likely it is seeing as Ogie is a jazz man and Cab Calloway was a huge jazz icon

[musculermigit]

4:53 ogie booogie says the same thing is this where it comes from?

[bluefishtattoos]

3:16 so very wrong...