Bimbo gets into a poker game to raise money for a ticket to the sunny South in this musical Fleischer Talkartoon.
It's been a long chase to see this cartoon, mostly because the song about playing poker is sung as a Black spiritual number, with chorus; nowadays such efforts are looked on as racist, and with good reason. Back in the day, however, they were the sort of song performed by Bert Williams, the first Black superstar, whose recordings, vaudeville appearances, movies, and record as a star of Ziegfeld's Follies make it clear that the path to equality is windier than most people think.
It's still half a synchronized cartoon, in which characters' actions were matched to the score, because animating mouths was still a very expensive process.
It's been a long chase to see this cartoon, mostly because the song about playing poker is sung as a Black spiritual number, with chorus; nowadays such efforts are looked on as racist, and with good reason. Back in the day, however, they were the sort of song performed by Bert Williams, the first Black superstar, whose recordings, vaudeville appearances, movies, and record as a star of Ziegfeld's Follies make it clear that the path to equality is windier than most people think.
It's still half a synchronized cartoon, in which characters' actions were matched to the score, because animating mouths was still a very expensive process.
