User Reviews

Just watched this Walter Lantz Swing Symphony on Thad's Animation Blog. It takes place on the Sandwich Islands which consists of Ham on Rye, Deviled Eggs, Hot Dog on Bun, Hamburger (with a sign saying "Hold the Onion") and Tunaville which is where a native notices through his telescope a box of musical instruments coming ashore. In no time at all the dark brown-skinned people all learn to form a band but not before one of them-a guy who looks like Fat Albert-plys his trade on the piano after seeing a crab use his legs expertly on them and tries to get "Albert" away from the keys! That segment was played by the late Bob Zurke who gets a credit here. The rest of the score was courtesy of Darrell Calker who really swings it at the end! And the director responsible for the whole excellent mix of humor and music is James "Shamus" Culhane. All I'll say after that is find Jungle Jive and dig it all, man!

The Swing Symphony series was an interesting if inconsistent series of cartoons. Tending to have in common great animation and even greater music but also tending to be virtually plotless and with the characters and writing varying. Its best cartoons are very good and its lesser ones are still quite watchable, none are inherently bad. A good deal of Walter Lantz's work ranges between well worth watching and must sees, even if some theatrical series are better than others.

Am personally very surprised by the low rating for 'Jungle Jive', which indicates a mediocre at best cartoon. To me and this is personal taste of course, this was very, very good and was on the whole one of the best of the Swing Symphony cartoons. As well as one of the better mixes of music and the jungle setting in animation. It's not one of the greatest cartoons ever made, but it has more good things than not so good and the best of the good things are actually pretty outstanding. So yes this is highly recommended.

It is very slight story-wise, barely existent in fact and doesn't fully settle straight away.

But really there is very little wrong at all with 'Jungle Jive'. The best thing about it of course is the music, which is indeed outstanding. Lush and lively with creative arrangements and exuberantly performed all round. The animation also impresses, the colours are vibrant and the attention to detail is rich with nothing stiff or static.

Gags are plenty and they are all very amusing to hilarious and a lot more inspired than expected, the use of sound effects surprising and fun. Absolutely loved the names for the islands. There is a lot of energy throughout which makes up for that the story is thin, while the characters are cute and full of personality, loved their musical skills such as with the piano. The most interesting character being the crab.

Lots of fun overall and one of the best of the series. 8/10.