Surprisingly incoherent and boring

One of my all time favorites.

Brilliant and touching

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

This is a Screen Song short produced by Famous Studios. There will be spoilers ahead:This is a fairly typical Screen Song short, with roughly half the short animation and the other half a singalong for the audience in the theater. The cartoon portion is an average "Darkest Africa" travelogue type of short with very predictable gags, stereotypical "African native" gags and the obligatory joke about cannibals. The funniest gag in the early portion of the short is about a diamond collector for a mine.The lead in for the singalong is a lion with a crown ("king of the beasts", naturally) being offered the chance to join a circus, which he declines, with a cue to the song "Bongo, Bongo, Bongo". The "bouncing ball" this time is one of the lion's pupils, which begins bouncing as the lion leads into the singalong.The backgrounds behind the lyrics are occasionally rather interesting and the song is okay, having been a novelty song when it was first done and surprisingly, it's worn well over the years. There's a bit of animation at the end of the short which is a little longer and a bit better than the usual endings to these. It has the best gags in the short and is worth watching, so I won't spoil it here.This can be found here and there and is worth watching.

Jingle, Jangle, Jungle (1950) *** (out of 4)Entertaining animated short from the Famous Studios has us taking a trip to Africa where narrator Jackson Beck tells us about the variety of things we might see there. We learn about the hot desert but the majority of the screen time goes to the jungle and the various things you might find there including cannibals, alligators and of course elephants and lions. JINGLE, JANGLE, JUNGLE isn't a masterpiece but it's certainly quite entertaining as long as you don't take it too serious. I'm sure some might be offended of the cannibal joke but it really isn't all that bad. The majority of the film is full of some entertaining characters and especially the entire subplot dealing with the "King of the Jungle" lion who is courted by a man wanting him to join his circus. How this plays out is quite funny and will certainly have a smile on your face. Obviously this thing isn't meant as some sort of history lesson but kids should really enjoy the various animals on display. We also get a "follow the bouncing ball" number with Bongo, Bongo, Bongo.

This is a typical Famous Studios Screen Song short with no plot but various sight gags that lead to a popular song. Jackson Beck, who is best known as Bluto in the Popeye cartoons, narrates about African life while we see the River of Hope (with caricature of Bob Hope depicted as a country), various kinds of birds (with lovebirds pictured as the husband having a black eye), and the natives (depicted as dark with white lips). As you probably guessed by my last description, the natives are stereotypical in such a way that this cartoon would rarely be seen publicly except by downloading. Anyway, before the song, "Bongo, Bongo, Bongo", a lion is offered a contract for Famous Circus. He refuses by explaining in the song. After song is over, a female lion entices him to go to America to the circus where she reveals herself to be the ringmaster who offered contract! Lion gets mad and....well see for yourself. Despite the stereotypes, an often amusing animated short.