Africa Squeaks
Africa Squeaks is a 1940 Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Bob Clampett. This cartoon was released by Warner Bros on January 27, 1940, and stars Porky Pig.[1] The cartoon is a parody of the movie Stanley and Livingstone starring Spencer Tracy and Cedric Hardwicke. The title parodies the 1930 documentary Africa Speaks!
Plot
The narrator introduces the audience to Africa as land of mystery and adventure truly the "dark continent" in the world which divided into three segments: Dark Africa, Darker Africa, and Darkest Africa. The Porky Pig leads a group of Native African to the journey to "Darkest Africa". Along with the journey they met with interesting specimen of wild life. An ostrich has put his head into a hole. Underground, the ostrich is actually sleeping on a pillow and snoring. In the meantime, two lions are eating bones of their prey. High in the tree tops mother monkey taking her baby out for fresh air.
Back with Porky and his journey, a little African native is running, yelling "Two arms!", and random gibberish. The native points to the village, as the boy says that the villagers found a strange white man in the village. Porky then drags Stanley over to the village. Stanley presumes that the white man is Dr. Livingstone he was searching for. The white man reveals himself as "Cake-Icer", as he is a music teacher (a reference to Kay Kyser, and his "Kollege of Musical Knowledge" radio program). He asks the students if he's right, and then a monkey comes out of Stanley's hat saying "Yeah!" many times. Cake-Icer wants everyone to dance, and music starts with an elephant using his trunk like a tuba. Everybody starts making music, singing, and dancing, including two fat Africans.
After a long day, they decide to return home as narrator said. Then, Porky and the Africans start running, as the Africans are singing a different song this time. The narrator says his farewell to Africa, and then the actual continent (with a face) moves and waves goodbye.
The Controversy
However, the film still is problematic for being racist in caricaturing Africans. All the native drawn in dark skin and monkey-like face with exaggerate big lips.
Censorship
The colorized version as seen on Nickelodeon was severely edited the cartoon to remove all the sequences of the African American natives, and the ending replaced the shot of Africa as a black-faced caricature bidding farewell to the viewer with a repeat of the opening pan from Dark Africa to Darkest Africa.[2]
Review
Once it is watched, it was surprising to learn this short was not one of the infamous “Censored Eleven” because WOW is it inappropriate! Porky goes on safari to “Darkest Africa’ (a joke recycled from Porky in Wackyland) where all his “native” servants are drawn basically like monkeys. Even if it can get past that, the documentary-style look at the various animals of the jungle is pretty lame. By the way, apparently according to Clampett there are kangaroos in Africa? Would probably grade this even lower but at least there’s a cool jazz number in it- although even then, the crooner who takes the mic is a gorilla. As pulled back from the continent at the very end, the actual landmass of Africa itself transforms into a giant blackface caricature to bid us farewell. Yiiiiikes.[3]
External Link
Watch Africa Squeaks colored version at Dailymotion
Africa Squeaks at IMDb
References
- ↑ Africa Squeaks. Retrieved December 21, 2020.
- ↑ Looney Tunes Fandom. Retrieved December 21, 2020.
- ↑ SpaceCadetJuan. Africa Squeaks, letterboxd.com. Retrieved December 22, 2020.