Mother Goose Goes Hollywood

I first got this on videotape because of the Marx Brothers caricatures in a scene with Hugh Herbert. (Just three brothers, Zeppo had left by this point.) I was pleased to see that Fred Astaire was also portrayed. He dances in a manner that suggests the animators studied his films carefully. There aren't many "appearances" of this type by Astaire. In fact this may be the only one. Katharine Hepburn gave an interview where she recalled a cartoon that contained a remarkable imitation of her. This is the cartoon she was talking about. She shows up as a running gag. The only censorship that I could detect in this cartoon was a scene where Eddie Cantor introduces "four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie." You see the pie bulge as if something is about to emerge and then there is an edit in the film. Today's corporate Disney is not about to allow "darkie" jokes in their cartoons. But the depiction of Fats Waller is mildly racist (if racism can be mild). I counted a total of thirty celebrities. When you've watched this videotape as many times as I have, you start counting celebrities.