Heap Hep Injuns (1949) User Reviews

One of the Sing Along series Paramount/Famous Pictures did

[llltdesq · 6/10 · 10 September 2006]

As cartoons go, these are average, with some being good and some being poor. They tend to be very formulaic in nature. I will be discussing some details, so technically this is a spoiler warning (though I'm not spoiling much):

This particular short is a pretty basic example of a Sing Along cartoon. They start out with about three and a half minutes of gags, mostly sight gags, built around a central theme (here, it's Indians), then a character does a song intro and tells the audience to sing along and "just follow the bouncing ball". The next roughly two minutes or so has a bouncing ball tracking the song lyrics in time with a chorale singing of whatever song is highlighted-"My Pony Boy" here- with the second verse and chorus having some rudimentary animation in addition to the bouncing ball. When the singing ends, there's a tail end to the cartoon that's usually one lengthy bit between one and two minutes long.

In this one, there's the obligatory gag about the "Cleveland Indians", with a bunch of Indians in baseball uniforms and Big Chief "Rain-In-the-Face" shows up-that's another standard joke. There are a few decent gags here, but most of it would have been trite and repetitive even back in 1949. The singing bits are the best part of this one. It has a few moments and is worth seeing, but it's just an average cartoon and is most decidedly full of stereotypical humor.

Pony Boy

[boblipton · 6/10 · 13 July 2015]

Here's another of the Famous Studios Screen Songs. Although it is not as good as the best of the Screen Songs from the Fleischer era -- those usually used well known performers for their recordings instead of the anonymous choruses of the Famous Studios era -- it is a well set up offering with a rat-a-tat series of gags.

Modern viewers may be offended, of course, by its use of standard Indian gags of the era. Given that the Patents Office has just removed the Washington Redskins' trademark protection, you might wish to find a more innocuous Screen Song to introduce someone to the series. I doubt if anyone is terribly offended by the observation that Maine has a lot of trees and beavers. On the other hand, the jokes aren't as well turned out in that one.

The song offered is "My Pony Boy" by Bobby Heath and Charley O'Donnell. Sixty years ago, we used to sing it on our rocking horses. I'm sure it offends someone these days.

Neither awful or great

[TheLittleSongbird · 5/10 · 7 January 2022]

On first watch, this was one of the Screen Songs cartoons that didn't do anything for me. To me on first watch it was bland and repetitive, with not much that was funny and the stereotyping was a turn off. That was some time ago, so when the recent decision was made to rewatch all the Screen Songs cartoons (the ones available that is) this was one of the ones where there was the hope that it would fare better second time around.

While still not a particularly good cartoon, and somewhere around low-ish middle as far as the series goes, this actually did fare better on rewatch (which has not been the case with some other Screen Songs cartoons where the initial reaction was also negative and were still mediocre at best on rewatch). So giving it a second chance was a good move on my part and is not regretted. My reservations are still similar but found more to like too this time.

Shall begin with the good. The animation here is good on the most part. Especially the vibrant colours and equally loved the background detail where a lot of care went into it, the setting looks handsome yet has grit too. The incidental music is even better, very lushly orchestrated and full of character rhythmically. "My Pony Boy" is well incorporated and beautifully performed, had not heard of it prior to my first watch and liked the melody.

There are a few amusing moments here and there. It is one of the cartoons in the Screen Songs series where the singalong portion actually comes off better than the rest, with that section's one downside being some quite basic animation in the character designs namely. This was where the cartoon was at its liveliest and most fun and it made me smile and want to sing along.

Most of the time however, there could have been a good deal more gags and what there were generally could have been sharper and had more variety. Instead of being the heavy in groan-worthy corn and derivative ones here. Also felt the humour was quite stereotypical and not always in a tasteful way. The characters on the whole are pretty trite and the stereotypes were the kind that would have been out of date even at the time.

Admittedly the Screen Songs cartoons are not ever to be seen for their stories, and the story here is not much of one at all and structurally is both formulaic and repetitive. Other than in the singalong portion it's on the dull side as well.

Overall, better on rewatch but my feelings here are pretty mixed. 5/10.