Review of Three Little Bops

. . . for Best Animated Short of 1957, but voice artist Mel Blanc's contract with Warner Bros. stated that only cartoons giving Blanc a voice credit would be submitted for Academy Award consideration. (Since it was Warner's "turn" to win this category that year--under the genteel practice of the 1900s for the Hot Houses of Hollywood to rotate the Golden Statuettes according to the "Studio System"--the Oscar went to an inferior Warner effort called BIRDS ANONYMOUS, in which Mr. Blanc participated.) THREE LITTLE BOPS illustrates the Truism that Death (preferably by suicide) helps many artists to "hit their stride," (such as John Kennedy Toole, whose CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES was published by his Mom 11 years after he killed himself, or Vincent van Gogh, whose brother sold hundreds of his paintings after Vinnie failed to sell even one, and blew his brains out in that corn field). Often people who collected only rejection slips when they were alive enjoy their greatest success once they buy the farm, especially if they have Moms and Brothers like Toole and Van Gogh. But, because his medium is Jazz, the Big Bad Wolf of THREE LITTLE BOPS doesn't even require the services of such an immediate-family-member-turned-posthumous-business-manager to finally earn a coveted ensemble gig. As the Three Little Pigs observe, "You Gotta get Hot (in Hades) to play Real Cool."