Monkey Melodies (Commentary)
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00:00Hey, I'm David Gerstein, editor of Gemstone Publishing's Walt Disney Treasures comic albums and Mickey and the Gang classic stories in verse.
00:09And I'm going to comment on Monkey Melodies, one of the first Disney cartoons to use popular songs on the soundtrack.
00:20Believe it or not, there was a wave of pop songs about monkeys at the turn of the century.
00:24And this one is Down in Jungle Town by Edward Madden and Theodore Morse.
00:29It seems to be where the expression monkey doodle came from, although in the song, monkey doodle was the name of the king of the monkeys, instead of what monkeys throw at you.
00:44This song was covered by various performers, including the famous team of Arthur Collins and Byron Harlan.
00:50It was so famous that comedian Nat Wells wrote a parody version that made fun of Teddy Roosevelt.
01:00Now here we've got Dick Lundy animating these monks scatting to the Abba Dabba Honeymoon, a 1914 hit by Arthur Fields and Walter Donovan.
01:08This song was revived again and again, even in the 60s. You might remember the words, Abba Dabba Dabba said the monkey to the chimp.
01:16All night long they chattered away, all day long they were happy and gay, singing and swinging in a hunky monkey way.
01:25And nobody knows quite what a hunky monkey way really meant. More recent versions of the song usually say honky tonky instead.
01:32These parrots were animated by Ben Sharpstein, one of the sharpest animators at Disney at the time.
01:38He had really slick line work going on, and we'll see a little bit more of it later.
01:44Ooh, we've got a lovely bunch of coconuts.
01:48Now here's our hero, and he's swinging along to what my fellow historian Cole Johnson has ID'd as the 1899 pop tune Narcissus,
01:57written by a guy named Ethelbert Woodbridge Nevin, say that five times fast.
02:01Nevin was also known for tunes such as the love song Mighty Locka Rose.
02:05Now take a good look at our hero, that's Les Clark, one of the future Nine Old Men animating him here, and now Wilfred Jackson takes over.
02:13And you can see the difference. As was Jackson's style, the monkeys get scrawnier and more gangly, with the hands almost moving like paddles.
02:20At the time Jackson animated Mickey Mouse the same way.
02:23All through Monkey Melodies you'll see how our two heroes change design rather radically.
02:28This was before Disney held animators as tightly to pre-prepared model sheets as he later would.
02:33By 1931 you wouldn't see this kind of inconsistency.
02:37Interesting love dance here, though a little on the slow side.
02:40Mickey and Minnie did a very similar slow dance in The Picnic, released right around the same time.
02:49Now here we've got Tom Palmer, who draws the boy and girl monkey in a more cuddly, almost toy-like way.
02:54You can see a little of Felix the Cat or Julius the Cat from Disney's Alice comedies in the way Palmer draws the monkey's eyes.
03:01Ouch, those bananas really hit bottom first thing, don't they?
03:05Ah, Monkey Love. Here's some really nice personality animation.
03:18Now here's Johnny Cannon animating the monkeys, and suddenly they're more realistically proportioned.
03:25Though not in this shot, though, it's still Cannon.
03:27Here's Jack King animating, and his monkeys have the goggle eyes he tended to give a lot of incidental characters.
03:36When the boy monkey uses his tail as a motor, it's a gag that would be reused with Pluto and Mickey's fishing around.
03:43OK, now it's time for another pop song.
03:45Dave Hand is animating these hungry crocodiles as they first appear on the scene.
03:50Whoa, they're scary, until they start dancing, that is.
03:53I guess thinking of crocodiles got the staff thinking about alligators,
03:56and thinking about alligators got them thinking about going way down south, y'all,
04:00so the Cronks get a southern pop song to dance to.
04:04It's called At a Georgia Camp Meeting, and it was written in 1897 by Frederick Mills.
04:09Now you may think, hey, that's still 30 years before Monkey Melodies,
04:12but remember, it was written in 1897.
04:15It's Norm Ferguson animating the dancing here.
04:17He could make an animal look anatomically right, even when it was doing something impossible.
04:21Really nice ragtime turns in the score here.
04:24Never heard another cartoon that did him in this authentic way.
04:46Dick Lundy animating again now, and a subconscious song reference, maybe.
04:50There was a hit at the time called You Have to Get Off and Walk.
04:53Get out and push, maybe.
04:59Uh-oh, ever get the feeling you was being followed?
05:02Beautiful underwater animation effects by David Hand,
05:04and the score drifts into just a little of the St. Louis style,
05:07but it's still a great song.
05:10Johnny Cannon animating a really nice flirt scene here.
05:15Ben Sharpstein animating again here, and notice how the croc smiles,
05:18with the corner of his mouth curving down just a little bit.
05:21You can often ID Sharpstein's work that way.
05:24Also typical to have happy characters with their eyes shut like this.
05:27I'm not sure if you can see it, but the croc is smiling.
05:30He's got a smile on his face.
05:32He's got a smile on his face.
05:34He's got a smile on his face.
05:36Wow, the monkeys look totally different in Ben's drawing style.
05:45And now it's back to Less Clark,
05:47same guy who animated the first scene of our hero.
05:50Now Jack King on the croc,
05:52typical King with diagonal pie-cut reflections in the eyes.
05:55Here's Tom Palmer doing a narrow escape.
05:57Maybe this inspired part of Disneyland's Jungle Cruise,
06:00but I don't know.
06:03Now here's Fergie again.
06:05Doesn't draw the monkeys in a realistic style,
06:07but see how their feet move in a realistic way.
06:15When the film was in production, this leopard was a tiger.
06:18Maybe stripes ended up being out of style that season.
06:21Now here's Jack King doing the end scene,
06:23with his goggle-eyed versions of the monkeys.
06:25Imagine if each animator used a different pair of eyes
06:28to draw the monkey.
06:30Imagine if each animator used a different pair of live monkeys as a model.
06:34There'd be more than a dozen in all.
06:36And then when the production was over,
06:38they could sell the whole bunch to the casting director
06:40of Lancelot Link's Secret Chimp.
06:46Just remember, monkey DNA is 97% identical to our own.
06:50I'm David Gerstein. See you later, alligator.