Title Card
Clean Pastures
Notes: 1.)
Phil Monroe apprenticed on the
Buddy cartoons when a teenager and later anchored the
Chuck Jones unit.
2.) The cartoon is a parody of Warner Bros.' 1936 film
The Green Pastures .
3.) Schlesinger and Warner Bros. had problems with the cartoon from the start. Hollywood censors alleged that the film ran afoul of the Hays Production Code because it burlesqued religion and glamorized gambling, drinking, and sex. Later commentators surmise that the censors also objected to the portrayal of a Heaven run by African Americans and the very idea that Satan himself gets into Heaven because of how popular it's become. As such, the short's stereotypical portrayal of black characters prompted
United Artists to withhold it from United States television in 1968, adding it to a group known as the infamous
Censored Eleven .
4.) Modern critics have been no kinder to the short and cite its portrayal of black characters as offensive and reliant on negative stereotypes.
4.1.) Musicologist Daniel Goldmark interprets the film as a send-up of black religion and culture and the increasing identification of 1930s white audiences of jazz music with black culture.
[citation needed [citation needed
Have You Got Any Castles? " Despite airing the reissue version with all of Alex Woolcott's appearances removed, Cartoon Network and Boomerang have aired this with the "Swing for Sale" part uncut, making this the closest that a Censored Eleven cartoon has ever aired on an American TV channel.September in the Rain " and later in "Tin Pan Alley Cats ".
Rings/Iris Center Colors: Blue
Home Video Releases: (1989) VHS - Uncensored Cartoons (Yo Ho Video)Banned & Censored Cartoons Volume I (World Wide Unique Media)All Scrappy, All Warners (A.A.P. Print; Thunderbean Animation)All Censored (A.A.P. Print; Thunderbean Animation)
Uncredited Voice Characterizations Mel Blanc (The Devil)
Lillian Randolph (Dancing woman)
Bill Days (Al Jolson, Sonny Boy Puppet)
Scott Whitaker (Cab Calloway)
Harland Evans (Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong)
Paul Taylor's Sportsmen Ben Carter's Plantation Choir The Basin Street Boys
Running time 8 minutes, 11 seconds
Color process Technicolor
Source
Clean Pastures is a 1937 Merrie Melodies Friz Freleng .
Plot [ ] The Lord sees that the stock value of "Pair-o-dice" is dropping on the exchange so he dispatches a slow-witted and slow-talking angel to sinful Harlem to recruit new customers. When this fails, God finds success sending a group of musical angels with a little more swing in their style, so much so that even the Devil wants to join up!
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