User Reviews

This is a great takeoff on Al Jolson and "The Jazz Singer." It's also a nice tribute to the famous entertaining of yesteryear.

In this version of the famous film, we have owls playing the parts. Papa Owl, a strict sort, is pleased when his wife has four eggs. When they hatch, it's immediately discovered one is a "Caruso," the next is a violinist like Fritz Kreisler, the third is a Mendelsohnn. Daddy is thrilled until the fourth one hatches and the chick is - horrors! - "a jazz singer, a crooner." Mama Owl faints, but Papa reassures her "we will teach him to sing like we want him, too.

You can guess the rest. If you're familiar with the story of The Jazz Singer, you should get a real "hoot" out of this animated short which has a very sweet ending to it as young "Owl Jolson" wins 'em over on the "Jack Bunny" radio broadcast.

Directed by the great Tex Avery, "I Love to Singa" is a superb Warner Bros. cartoon featuring some great swing music. The story is about a musical owl family, the father of whom is Prof. Fritz Owl, a teacher of strictly classical music with absolutely no tolerance for jazz. He and his wife bear four sons, the first three of whom humorously pop out of their eggs sporting tuxes and displaying their immediate gift of being able to sing or play classical music. The fourth son, named Owl Jolson, sports a red coat & blue bow tie and, to his parents' horror, sings jazz! His favorite song is "I Love to Singa," which he happily sings & swings throughout this wonderful cartoon.

Here are my favorite moments from "I Love to Singa." Owl Jolson's parents are hilarious in their horrified reactions to his being a jazz singer; the mother faints and the German-accented father angrily calls him a "crooner," a "hotcha," and a "falsetto" before kicking him out of the house. At the G-O-N-G broadcasting station, one of the contestants is an overweight hen who sings the first line of "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" before getting the gong and almost getting stuck in the chute! When the delightful Owl Jolson shows up at the radio station, he dances & sings his old swinging standby - what else? - "I Love to Singa."

"I Love to Singa" is a fun little cartoon with a great story and terrific music. It's also nice to see in the end that Owl Jolson's parents finally welcome the fact that they have a jazz singer in their family.

. . . but whooooooever thought that owls were humorous in the first place? I suppose it IS refreshing to find a cartoon from the 1930s in which Mel Blanc is not supplying nearly ALL the voices. According to this page, you have Billy Bletcher, Tommy Bond, Johnnie Davis, Joe Dougherty, Bernice Hansen, and Martha Wentworth supplying the voices of the primary members of the I LOVE TO SINGA cast. Though I must admit none of these names rings much of a bell in my head, I assume that they denote a half dozen DIFFERENT people and not just six degrees of Mel. An essential aspect of this parody's target, the feature film THE JAZZ SINGER starring Al Jolson from nine years earlier, is pretty much glossed over in this spoof, which is too bad in a way. A cartoon owl in Blackface could have been a hoot. Jolson himself would have been in big trouble if Hitler successfully added America to the Third Reich, and in Michigan alone he had Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and Father Charles Edward Coughlin (a.k.a., "Hitler's priest") on his side. Possibly when I LOVE TO SINGA was made in 1936, with Hitler so much more powerful than in 1927, the cartoon's producers were afraid to risk being on the Gestapo's hit list in the near future by making light of the double whammy of combining Jewishness and Blackness into one character as the more courageous Jolson did in the source material.

. . . gets stuck by her girth in the reject trap door of the radio sound stage and has to be whacked hard in her head with a giant mallet to pound her down below, viewers will wonder WHY Station G. O. N. G. did not simply resort to bullets for the talentless, as opposed to their unwieldy game of Chutes and Ladders. Most of the variety act contest flunk-outs are prime consumable goods, with nothing standing between them and a dinner plate beyond a simple bullet to the brain. As the self-conking "Simple Simon" performer indicates, these meat packets know which side of their bacon is buttered, and they simply want to be put out of the misery entailed if they hang around past their "best by" date.

Tex Avery's 'I Love to Singa' is a cartoon which confounds expectations about both Avery's work and Warner Bros. cartoons in general. At this early stage in their development, the Merrie Melodies series of cartoons were an attempt to rival the prestige colour cartoons of Walt Disney, often by emulating them. Thus 'I Love to Singa' is full of cute, wide-eyed characters and a sweet, slow-moving plot. However, it's what Avery does with these character that makes 'I Love to Singa' a mini-masterpiece. A parody of 'The Jazz Singer', 'I Love to Singa' stars a baby owl named Owl Jolson, a jazz lover born into a family of classical musicians. When an over-zealous Papa Owl throws his son out for insisting on singing jazz, Owl Jolson goes on to win a radio talent contest and, subsequently, the approval of his family. This thinnest of plots is infused with enormous appeal through Avery's mixture of strikingly handsome, warm visuals and hilarious character comedy. The cartoon is nearly stolen by a stammering hillbilly bird and his laboured rendition of Simple Simon but ultimately 'I Love to Singa' belongs to Owl Jolson, a character who manages to be cute without being cloying. Every time he opens his mouth to sing, 'I Love to Singa' positively lights up. While you won't find any of the anarchic humour associated with Warner Bros. or the 100mph pacing and exaggerated reaction shots associated with Avery here, what you will find is an exceptional example of great storytelling and charming character comedy. 'I Love to Singa', while too sweet for some viewers, is a true classic in my eyes and I adore it more ever time I see it.

Here we have an 8-minute cartoon by Tex Avery early in his career. He was actually not even 30 when he made this and he also also appeared as a voice actor and co-wrote the script. Three writers for this runtime is quite a lot. It is a Schlesinger Studios production and got released by (Vitaphone) Warner Bros. Even without the inclusion of Bugs, Daffy and the rest, you find this as part of Looney Tunes compilations. The animal characters are owls this time, not too common in the world of animation and cartoons, but an animal species I do indeed like quite a lot. Father Owl is a renowned classical musician and is delighted to see baby owls with talent for opera, violin and flute see the light of day and let me add that I found it interesting how they mentioned musicians these young birds resembled in terms of their talent. Anyway, what a family really with every single birdy being so gifted apparently. However, owl number 4 seems to have a talent for jazz and no teaching lessons in more traditional singing make a difference. So his father chases him out of the house. Really over the top, mother Owl is right, even if I am still surprised why she looks unhappy initially despite all these eggs below her. How could she not recognize? But yeah, back to the story: After the different kid left his family, everything goes as expected: the little owl shows up at a talent show and impresses the juror so much that he gets first prize. Father Owl comes to the event too with the rest of the family and everybody bonds again and the little owl is allowed back into the family. I do not really see how the owl is so more talented than the other contestants there, one major issue I have with the story and this is really the core of it. I mean his tune is alright and kinda catchy, but does get annoying too at some point when you hear it too often. The voice is nothing special I would say and I also don't see great qualities as an entertainer when it comes to this little owl.

I would like to give out a mention to Tommy Bond, a truly prolific (child) actor back in the day who voices the main character here and died early in the new millennium, not a long time after he acted in one final film after a break of over 30 years, so his final performance came almost 70 years after his voice acting for this cartoon here. In 1936 he turned 10 and he is probably most known for his role in the Superman movies after World War II. Other than Bond, you will find voice actors in here that had extremely prolific careers back then during the Golden Age of Animation. I will spare you the names now as you can check out the cast list yourself. Probably it is a longer list than you expected to see. At least it was for me. Before the review ends, let us also have a quick look at the cartoon's technical aspects: It can be said that the animation is fine for almost 80 years ago, the music is okay, sound in general, and the story isn't bad either, but very generic. Yet there is nothing somewhat impressive or surprising in this short film and it just vanishes into the mass of cartoons made in the 1930s and 1940s. Nothing stands out here except the pretty amazing colors to some extent perhaps and the funniest moment perhaps when the hen is too chubby to fall into the hole for the rejected and the hare has to use his hammer to make it happen. That was surely on the hilarious side, also how daddy starts singing jazz towards the end was nice. To me, he was more interesting than his son. By the way, if that one was called Owl, then what were his siblings' names. Or did they all have the same first name and differing last names? Anyway, I think that overall it is a thumbs-down for me and I am not surprised that these owl characters did not get featured again in other Warner Bros cartoons. Not recommended. Avery certainly got better with age.

The first time I ever saw this Warner Brothers short was @ a pizza parlor over in Irving, Texas. It always makes me laugh when the little owl heads over to radio station G-O-N-G! Jack Bunny is the host & judge of the talent show. It's kind of a spoof of the old Major Bowes Amateur Hour radio show, complete with a gong. Today, people would think of it as The Gong Show Meets American Idol with Jack Bunny as a cross between Simon Cowell & Chuck Barris! When the owl saw his family @ radio station G-O-N-G, the father had a change of heart, just before Jack Bunny's about to gong him off! I Love To Singa is a clever movie & it doesn't deserve the G-O-N-G!

A great one from the early Chuck Jones era. Of all the Merrie Melodies of the prewar period, this is one of the best. Just hum the first few bars, everyone knows the song! How many other songs from the 30's get instant recognition? The dancing is cute and I am amazed how good the singer is. I didn't realize it was Butch from the Little Rascals before! If you are fans of old movies and early TV, the other voices were all character actors from that time.

The Chicken Lady with the Betty Boop voice is an unsung hero of early animation, usually uncredited - Cookie in the Buddy toons and the original Petunia Pig.

Anyway, this is a fave of mine - Rated A

This animated short was just so unbelievably adorable!

The little Owl Jolson was so incredibly cute and likable, being one of the most endearing characters ever made in all the history of animation.

The song used in this short was very catchy and pleasant to hear, while the plot of this animation was highly entertaining.

The animation is flawless, with very cute and appealing designs, beautiful sceneries, fluid movements and a lovely use of colors.

"I love to Singa" has all the charming qualities from many of the classic cartoons of the Golden Age of Animation, being a very enjoyable short for all the family.