Cab Galloway -- Reefer Man

[Brigid]

And by the way, "Minnie the Moocher" is actually about cocaine use.

[easychoice]

1. that's why she counted her nickles and dimes a million times...

She was critterbuggin...
LMAO

[kentauros]

2. And then there's Danny Elfman's version:

[easychoice]

3. How did you find my neighbors?

I swear...

[kentauros]

4. Through the magic of Night Flight

on USA network in the 1980s

[easychoice]

5. YaY!

That boy ate way too much LSD...My neighbors thought Nightmare on Elm St. was a documentary...

[kentauros]

6. So, you live on a hill?

And it has eyes?

[easychoice]

7. no ,but don't let reality get in the way...

They are so crazy I just love them...
98108... down along the river

[kentauros]

8. Don't get the 98108 reference,

unless you're giving me a real zip code?

I guess Torgo will need it when he delivers your pizza

[easychoice]

9. it's a real zip

our most famous citizen: Gary Ridgeway
Green River

[Brigid]

11. Well, that was . . .

Interesting.

[kentauros]

17. Created by Danny's brother, Richard,

for his low-budget movie "The Forbidden Zone"

If you're truly adventurous, look for it, and maybe drink something so its overall weirdness doesn't do any lasting damage

[CBGLuthier]

10. Better "video" of Reefer Man

From the film International House (1933). Goofy framing by the encoder but if you look closely at the beginning this was depicted as part of a television broadcast in the movie.

[Brigid]

12. I saw that one.

I picked the other because I didn't much care for the framing, but Cab Calloway's dancing was pretty funny.

[CBGLuthier]

13. Yeah, I did not like it either

But I always loved that guy on bass slapping away crazily. I first saw it in a broadcast of the movie itself on TCM probably. Weird movie with stuff from Burns & Allen, W.C. Fields, and a ten year old Rose Marie. Worth hunting down.

[Brother Buzz]

14. Some serious talent from the Blues Brothers backing up Cab Galloway

Yet one can't discuss Minnie The Moocher without posting Betty Boop:

In 1932, Calloway recorded the song for a Fleischer Studios Talkartoon short cartoon, also called Minnie the Moocher, starring Betty Boop and Bimbo. Calloway and his band provide most of the short's score and themselves appear in a live-action introduction. The thirty-second live-action segment is the earliest-known film footage of Calloway. In the cartoon, Betty decides to run away from her parents - who insist that she eat something despite the fact that she doesn't want to eat (to the tune of "They Always Pick on Me,&quot , and Bimbo comes with her. While walking away from home, Betty and Bimbo wind up in a spooky area and hide in a hollow tree. A spectral walrus — whose gyrations were rotoscoped from footage of Calloway dancing — appears to them, and begins to sing "Minnie the Moocher", with many fellow ghosts following along. After singing the whole number, the ghosts chase Betty and Bimbo all the way back to Betty's home.

[Brigid]

15. I noticed that one, but didn't watch it then.

Wow, Cab Galloway was really young in that short -- only 24!

[Brother Buzz]

16. You do know Cab Calloway dancing at the beginning was the template...

for the dancing walrus in the film? Pretty heady stuff for 1932


Here's another, and arguably a more artistic one from 1933 (Calloway performed three of his own songs during the cartoon, and voiced all of the characters aside from Betty):