Mouse cartoon jack benny biography

When writing my dissertation and then The Colored Cartoon , I decided not to look at any American animated short films released after I thought that the year was a good stopping point for African American images because of the decline in appearances of African American caricature after that year and because of the symbolism of as the year of Brown v.

Jack benny cause of death

But he also appears without pronounced lips, and he does not speak in blackface-inspired dialect. Those distinctions set his appearance in this film apart from his caricatures in any film preceding this one. Unfortunately, by , the cartoon short industry was very risk-averse and did not pursue further African American characters devoid of crude ethnic imaging.

Instead studios avoided African American caricature in order to avoid losing money if distributors had to withdraw ethnic films that drew too much protest. The next time commercial US animation caricatured famous African Americans was in the television series The Harlem Globetrotters in , and, ironically, Rochester voiced one of the players.

He played a domestic servant who, at least in the early days, embodied some of the worst stereotypes associated with the role: laziness, gambling and drinking. Yet he was an immensely appealing and resourceful comic character who regularly got the best of his boss. It might have served as a model for depicting African Americans in cartoons. Stern then told some very funny anecdotes about his long and warm friendship with the comedian.

He was sometimes billed that way in live-action movies as well.