Down Among the Sugar Cane

Here's another one of those diverting sing-along-with-the-Bouncing-Ball epics from the Fleischer Studio, and like most of the others it's both charmingly weird and weirdly charming. Our hostess is the Inimitable Lillian Roth (as she is billed) who brings an infectious, gleeful energy to the proceedings.

My first viewing of this cartoon was memorable: in the early 1980s I enrolled in a course on the history of animated films at the New School in NYC, taught by the one and only Leonard Maltin. It was a great class! Every Tuesday night we'd gather in a lecture hall and watch a dozen or so cartoons, and of course Professor Maltin would supply lots of historical background and context. What's not to like? Anyway, one evening he asked if any of us were familiar with a song called "Down Among the Sugar Cane." When no one answered yes he continued: "Trust me, by the time this cartoon is over you'll know every word by heart." And needless to say, he was right.

Lillian Roth kicks off the show singing a chorus of the title tune before a painted backdrop of a Southern plantation. Next we're treated to a series of typically surreal Flesicher-style blackout gags, set on a plantation where sugar cane is grown. A farmer plants "sugar cane seeds" that resemble sugar cubes, and moments later candy canes sprout from the ground. Beavers chop down the canes by licking them at the base, and when the canes hit the ground they shatter and turn back into cubes. The beavers then carry the harvest of sugar off to their youngsters (the baby beavers wear bonnets, naturally), who celebrate with a harvest dance. Next, the field attracts a bumble bee, who chops a candy cane with an ax, extricates a single cube, and carries it off to the queen of his hive. She seems impressed, and agrees to accompany him to the sugar cane field. She's careful to bring her roller-skates, perhaps so we won't assume anything unwholesome is going to occur.

Back to Miss Roth in live action. She performs the song and invites viewers to join in and sing with her, following that ever popular bouncing ball. The lyrics are memorable: "There'll be oodles of kisses, more than I can explain/When I'm walking talking with my sweetness, down among the sugar cane." (In Leonard Maltin's classroom we all joined in and sang. I can't vouch for the quality, aesthetically speaking, but we sang.) During the final chorus animation returns with amusing images of the situations in the song's lyrics, and it all wraps up with a cute, saucy closing gag.

These Fleischer sing-a-longs are a real treat: funny, nostalgic and tuneful. And I can attest, they're especially fun when viewed with a good-humored crowd willing to participate.

That's how the lady is credited in this typical Fleischer Screen Song. The song itself is a pleasant little ballad, neither particularly good nor outrageously awful for the era. Miss Roth's singing is excellent, her mannerisms are suited for a live stage audience, and the cartoon is filled with the apposite "When I Take My Sugar to Tea", which works well as counterpoint.

The gags, as in all of the Fleischer productions, are scattered liberally throughout; the philosophy of Dave Fleischer for all his cartoons was to throw in a lot of gags on what may seem, these days, a hit-or-miss basis, but the large number means that enough will work to keep the audience interested through one verse and three repetitions of the chorus. Worth a look.

Down Among the sugar Cane (1932)

*** (out of 4)

The Fleischer Studio produced a number of these animated short films where the "bouncing ball" would have audience members singing together. The animated story kicks off with a farmer planting some seeds and up comes some sugar cane. From here some animals take over eating it and then it's time for the bouncing ball and song. If you're a fan of these shorts then you know they all basically follow the same formula and this one here isn't any different. For the most part this is an entertaining short as the animation was quite good and there were some nice laughs with it as well. The song itself, sung by Lillian Roth, was also quite good.

Just watched this Max Fleischer Screen Song cartoon on YouTube. Like another Screen Song called Ain't She Sweet, this one has singer Lillian Roth appearing in live action. Also like that previous one, the original credits-down to the Paramount mountain logo-are intact. After someone fills some holes in the ground with sugar cubes, some candy canes grow. Plenty of funny gags abound and when Ms. Roth sings, she's appealingly perky throughout, just as she was in her previous short I watched. Once again after the Bouncing Ball segment but before the song is over, we see cartoon characters jumping on most of the rest of the lyrics. So on that note, I highly recommend Down Among the Sugar Cane.