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Mother Goose Goes Hollywood
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Wikipedia article
'Mother Goose Goes Hollywood' is a 1938 animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. The short was released on December 23, 1938. The film parodies several Mother Goose nursery rhymes using caricatures of popular Hollywood film stars of the 1930s. The film was directed by Wilfred Jackson and was the third-to-last 'Silly Symphony' produced.
Plot
This cartoon short depicts a series of sketches showing popular Hollywood stars of the day acting out traditional nursery rhymes.
Old King Cole is (Hugh Herbert) and his three fiddlers are (The Marx Brothers) and a special guest of Donald Duck.
Rub-a-dub-dub is portrayed with Charles Laughton, Spencer Tracy and Freddie Bartholomew.
W. C. Fields plays Humpty Dumpty with special guest Charlie McCarthy.
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play Simple Simon and the pieman.
See Saw Margery Daw is performed by Edward G. Robinson and Greta Garbo on a seesaw.
Eddie Cantor is Little Jack Horner in a big musical sequence featuring Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, and Stepin Fetchit as singing crows. Others who appear are Clark Gable, Martha Raye, Fred Astaire, Joe E. Brown and Alice Faye.
In a running gag, Katharine Hepburn appears at various points as Little Bo Peep.
Reception
On July 2, 1938, 'Variety' said, "'Mother Goose Goes Hollywood.' Also haywire. She thinks she is Leo the Lion and opens the picture with that Metro college yell, three leonine rahs. So in angles Katharine Hepburn Bo Peep with a Back Bay accent. She has lost her sheep on account of she looks hungry enough to eat a flock of mutton. While she is paging her sheep, up pops Hugh Herbert who looks more like a roast beef. He is dressed up like Old King Cole and calls for fiddlers three but all he gets is the Ritz Brothers... This is a preview of 'Mother Goose Goes Hollywood' at the Pantages last night, and if you think the previewer is crazy, go and look at it yourself. A Walt Disney production for RKO-Radio release. Running time not long enough."
Since the 1960s, this cartoon has not been broadcast very often on television, due to the stereotypical depictions of black people in some scenes. Sometimes it has been broadcast minus the scenes with African Americans but as animation critic Charles Solomon noted in his book, 'Enchanted Drawings: History of Animation', that the caricatures of Fats Waller and Cab Calloway don't poke fun at their race, and are treated just as good or bad like the other caricatured celebrities spoofed in this cartoon.
Voice cast
* The Blackbirds: Cab Calloway
* Dave Weber: Eddie Cantor, Charlie McCarthy, Joe Penner, Edward G. Robinson
* Clarence Nash: Donald Duck
* Thelma Boardman: Freddie Bartholemew
* Ann Lee: Martha Raye
* Sara Berner: Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn
* Al Bernie: Charles Laughton, W.C. Fields, Laurel and Hardy
Home media
The short was released on December 19, 2006 on 'Walt Disney Treasures: More Silly Symphonies, Volume Two'.
See also
* 'Mickey's Gala Premiere'
* 'Mickey's Polo Team'
* 'The Autograph Hound'
* 'Hollywood Steps Out'
* 'Slick Hare'
* 'Hollywood Daffy'
* 'Felix in Hollywood'
References
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