User Reviews

In this early synchronized sound cartoon from the Van Beuren cartoon factory, a dog and cat encounter huge, strange and terrifying creatures in the jungle. They seek refuge in a missionary's hut, where they play an organ, which causes the animals to dance. They are captured by cannibals, but escape and lead the jungle animals in song.

There are a few features worth mentioning. First is the cannibals, who look like Ubangi, wearing grass skirts and bones in their hair. Eighty years later, this is a highly offensive image, but at the time it was a standard one, used in Disney cartoons and elsewhere. In fact, the image would not disappear from the cartoons for a couple of decades, until the last Inki and the Myna cartoon, CAVEMAN INKI.

Second, the dog and cat resemble Van Beuren's Tom and Jerry, in movement, in appearance and in the plot, which is a musical one, even though that series would not really begin until the following year. Cartoon characters did not arise full grown as a rule. Elmer Fudd started as "Egghead" several years before his official debut; Betty Boop started as a cartoon dog. It seems that these might be early versions.

Finally, there is a small homage in this one: the cannibal king looks like the Imp from Winsor McKay's LITTLE NEMO IN SLUMBERLAND, an ornately drawn cartoon from early in the century which McKay turned into a cartoon in 1912.

Van Beuren cartoons are extremely variable, especially in the number of gags and whether the absurdist humour shines through enough (sometimes it does, other times it doesn't), but are strangely interesting. Although they are often poorly animated with barely existent stories and less than compelling lead characters, they are also often outstandingly scored, there can be some fun support characters and some are well-timed and amusing.

'Jungle Jazz' is not quite one of Van Beuren's worst or one of the worst of the Aesop's Fables cartoons. That doesn't mean that 'Jungle Jazz' is good though, quite the opposite (more mediocre if anything else) if with a few good things to come it from being an abomination but generally most of the usual flaws are here.

Van Beuren have actually done quite a number of watchable or more cartoons, a few pretty good even though imperfect. So it's not as if they are all being hated on.

Its best asset is the music score, pretty much the best thing consistently of Van Beuren's output (sometimes even the only good thing). It is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated, is great fun to listen to and full of lively energy, doing so well with enhancing the action.

Some of the synchronisation is nicely done and there is some liveliness pace-wise. A couple of mildly amusing moments too and that the cat and dog reminds one agreed of the human Tom and Jerry is an interest point

However, pretty much all the fault of Van Beuren's cartoons are present here. The animation is not good, in fact it is downright bad most of the time with erratically sloppy character designs in particular while the simplistic background detail and lack of fluidity and crispness are just as difficult to ignore. Often you can't actually tell what the animals are actually meant to be.

None of the characters are that interesting or fun, the portrayal of the cannibals may not have been a novel thing but that doesn't stop them from being poorly drawn and distastefully portrayed, almost as bad as the racial stereotypes in the earlier Aesop's Fables cartoon 'Dixie Days'.

Story is very slight to the point of non-existence, and not only doesn't go very far but it feels random and disjointed at times. If you are looking for sense too, look elsewhere.

Basically 'Jungle Jazz' is a stringing along of gags and sequences structured in a way that's disorganised and random. generally, while having a fair bit going on, it is very low on laughs. In terms of quality few gags are amusing or inventive, rarely rising above the forgettable and there is not much absurdist about them.

In summary, mediocre. 4/10 Bethany Cox

I guess I could forgive the creators of this--since there was so little knowledge of African tribes at the time. The cannibals are offensive, but were kind of old hat in that era of white superiority. The way I look at this cartoon is that it has no logic and the animation is tired. The only thing I found intriguing is the portrayal of the strange jungle animals