Bingo Crosbyana

The eight minute cartoon short was often seen on the big screens in cinemas during the great depression. This short may have irritated Bing Crosby but it was entertaining if not too short. Too bad, they're not shown often enough on television anymore.

In fact, there were a lot of black actors back then who also should have sued Warner Brothers too for defamation of character. Unfortunately, they didn't have Bing's clout. There's a difference between using a famous face as a caricature and using it as a means to debase someone. In this Family Guy era, we see celebrities and politicians trashed all of the time, and there's not much the victims can do about it (for instance, Carol Burnett tried to stop Family Guy from using her Charwoman character in an R-rated parody, and lost her case. I think she had a point. That character is part of her legacy and she has a right to try to protect it, in my opinion). But back in the early 20th century, standards were different, and it's not surprising Warner Bros. backed off of caricaturing Crosby...for a while.

As to whether or not Crosby himself was a good or bad person, it depends on who is talking about him. A couple of his sons described him as a cold disciplinarian. One of his sons, however, denied that and said that Bing was a great father. And his second family of children (those he fathered with second wife Kathryn Crosby) were devoted to him. There was a story in the newspaper many years ago in which Bing said he hoped to not repeat the mistakes he made with his first family. So clearly there were some issues, issues that Bing came to regret.

To my mind, Bing had some justification to be protective of his image, but Warners had the right to freedom of expression. It's a paradox that plagues show business to this day, and likely will never be fully resolved in any instance in which such a situation arises. As usual, the only clear winners will probably be the lawyers.

"Bingo Crobyana" is the second Looney Tunes cartoon to negatively portray a Bing Crosby-like character. It was so bad that Crosby actually sued the studio after this second one (the first was the extremely unflattering "Let It Be Me"). It makes you wonder why. Was it because he worked for rival Paramount or was there something more to this?

In this full color cartoon, the characters are all cute bugs...and is at least the second or third time during this era that their cartoons featured bugs...and I'm not talking about the bunny! There is a Crosby-like bug who impresses the girl bugs. The guy bugs aren't thrilled by this and it's soon obvious he's a jerk. Then, the girl bugs start singing....and I HATE singing in 1930s cartoons and wanted more comedy.

The best thing about this cartoon is that it's animation and use of full-color...something only occasionally done in 1930s cartoon shorts by Looney Tunes and most of their rivals (except for Disney who switched to all color cartoons a few years earlier). The story is okay but could have used a bit more humor.

I could see how Crosby would be more upset about this second negative portrayal, as the character sounds MUCH more like him....whereas in the first the studio could claim the similarities were accidental.

This is mostly like those typical 1930s cartoons in which the featured 'characters' consisted of ensembles of (usually dancing) flies, bugs or other insects, with the villain being an over-sized, black, and evil-cackling basso profundo spider.

The title tells you that this is clearly intented to be about Bing Crosby, although the character doesn't have Bing's face, as you would see in later Warner Brothers cartoons. The high point is the comic song "Bingo Crosbyana" that pokes fun at Bing's effect on women as a crooner.

Bing sued Warner Brothers over his portrayal in the cartoon as a coward. As others have noted, without his actual face being shown, Bing didn't have a case against them, despite his character singing a couple of bubba ba boos.

What makes the cartoon interesting is the comic spin that the 'hero' turns out to be a coward, and that the other male flies, emasculated by the crooner fly, become the heroes that defeat the spider. Contrast this with the countless other insect or spider and fly cartoons such as "The Cobweb Hotel" (1936) by Max Fleisher.

I'd give it a 5 for the song and the spin. Note: You can find this cartoon on the DVD of the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers film "Swing Time" (1936).

Back when Warner Bros. animation was still in its relative infancy - and Mel Blanc wasn't yet providing the voices - they made this quirky short in which an insect caricature of Bing Crosby gets all the female bugs to swoon, but proves to be a wimp once a spider shows up. These guys often turn out to be worthless, don't they? I see that Bing Crosby filed a lawsuit against WB for portraying him as a coward. Well, as it turns out, BC was worse than that. He was very strict with his family (almost to the point of cruelty), and apparently an anti-Semite. I would have easily sided with WB in BC's lawsuit against them, just because he was such a creep.

So, if nothing else, "Bingo Crosbyana" is worth seeing as a historical reference.