I Love To Singa, a 1936 Merrie Melodies cartoon produced by Warner Bros. and directed by the great Tex Avery. The whole thing’s a takeoff of the Al Jolson movie, The Jazz Singer, which was one of the first Hollywood movies with a music and dialogue soundtrack.
I love this picture. Little “Owl” Jolson, having been kicked out of the house by his jazz-hating father, picks himself up, dust himself off and continues on with what he wanted to do anyway, winning a Jack Benny-style radio contest in the process. Granted, there’s a close call when his parents show up to the radio station and he falls back into old habits, but he soon rebounds and takes the grand prize. And I didn’t even have to watch Jolson put on blackface, which put a real damper on my enjoyment of the film this cartoon spoofs.
I love the face Owl makes ( >:P ) when he has to sing the dreadful old tune: “Driiiink to me only wiiith thine eyes, and I-yi will pledddge with miiiiine.”