tadpole-596-918256 Review of Uncle Tom's Bungalow

Uncle Tom's Bungalow (1937)

When you consider this animated short, you must be aware of the fact . . .

[6/10 · 11 March 2017]

. . . that director Tex Avery, born in Taylor, TX, had a best friend (Jefferson Beauregard Longstreet III) whose dad had once owned an Edison Manufacturing Co. Peepshow Emporium. One of the most notable anecdotes concerning Tex's boyhood concerns his frequent visits to Jeff's home on "movie night," where Thomas Alva "Mr. Lightbulb" Edison's 1903 version of UNCLE TOM'S CABIN made a particularly strong impression upon the young Tex. Edison's 19-minute travesty is cluttered with extraneous characters, such as Misters Phineas, St. Clair, and Marks. It's also pockmarked by Racist Dancing Slaves scenes, as this is the only waking activity performed by Edison's Happy Black Cotton Pickers when they are not picking white fluff balls or being flogged. To make matters worse, Edison throws in a tacky steamboat race between two toy vessels (one of which "explodes" and burns mid-river for two weeks!) and a couple hokey "Angels in America" chintzy "Death Tableaux." Given this background, Director Avery's UNCLE TOM'S BUNGALOW was an effort to "set the record straight" (and he must have done a pretty good job, because original author Harriet Beecher Stowe's great-granddaughter Henrietta said BUNGALOW was twice as entertaining and only half as Racist as Edison's CABIN travesty). When you view Avery's BUNGALOW, mercifully clocking in at less than nine minutes, you won't find Little Eva and Topsy goose-stepping like Nazi Storm Troopers, parasols held high in the air as they endlessly circle the St. Clair Plantation courtyard. Nor will you see Angels of Death flitting about here and there, or suffer through tawdry toy steamboat races. In fact, Tex eliminates the boring bits with Phineas, St. Clair, and Marks, putting the focus back where it belongs: on Uncle Tom.