TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

Grimerlana Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

bugssponge The film is now withdrawn from distribution due to stereotypes. Since it is in the public domain, it can be handed down to anyone to distribute. Turner owns the original negative to the cartoon.Turner said he would never air these cartoons again on his networks. However, a station in Costa Rica aired it in 1995.The cartoon isn't offensive at all, but the cannablism is a bit creepy.There is a salesman but the black people want to eat him. He then sinks in the soup, preferring to be burned than eaten alive.6/10, but it is one of Friz Freleng's earliest cartoons and he would be awesome in the 40s-70s.

tavm This is another of the "Censored 11" Warner Bros. cartoons that I found on Thad's Animation Blog. Thad thinks most of the gags are stupid but since Friz Freling directed this, there are at least a few clever ones like the Looney Tunes Theme-"The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down"-being depicted with these cannibals going up-and-down on a pole in a circle with a tent-like roof and a few others whistling in unison or the tall humanized salesman getting punched in the stomach. Besides that, however, the stereotypical characterizations pretty much defeats whatever entertainment value this short once had and dated references to old-time radio stars doesn't help. And what's with one of the natives speaking in a pseudo-stereotypical broken Chinese English? And why is their leader a white prissy queen drawn as a chicken? And why does she see the dog salesman as humanized Clark Gable and Robert Taylor? If you're a Warner cartoon completest, I'd recommend Jungle Jitters for one time viewing. Otherwise, stay away.

F Gwynplaine MacIntyre I'd heard no end of horror stories about how 'Jungle Jitters' is allegedly so mind-bogglingly racist that it has been banned from polite society for all eternity. It turns out that this cartoon's major crime is that it isn't very funny. The single most racist gag involves a black man who looks like Stepin Fetchit but with enormous lips. He eats a persimmon, and his lips pucker until they're normal size. Elsewhere there are moronic gags involving African natives (all male) with nose rings and metal bands elongating their necks. (Apparently the gang at Termite Terrace have got African men confused with Burmese women.) I was surprised that there weren't any plate-lip gags ... but, really, most of this toon is just so stupid and unfunny that it's not worth the credibility of being called racist. Some other Hollywood toons from this same period are far more racist, maliciously so. Step forward, Chuck Jones's Inki.After the initial gags, we get two interesting examples of Dorgan's Syndrome, a term I invented. Dorgan's Syndrome (named for comic-strip artist Tad Dorgan) is when a comic-strip character or cartoon character (almost invariably male) is drawn to look like an exaggerated human (fully clothed), but very minor details -- such as floppy spaniel ears or a black button nose -- indicate that he's actually a humanised animal, nearly always a dog. (Tad Dorgan drew comic-strip dogs who were so completely anthropomorphised, you have to look carefully to see they aren't comic-strip humans.) Into this cartoon jungle comes a commercial traveller who appears to be a white man, except that he has a dog's nose. The African natives (who are clearly human beings, at least by cartoon standards) want to put him in a big cauldron and eat him. Before anybody cries 'cannibalism', how can they be cannibals if they're humans eating a dog? The talking dog's flesh tones resemble a caucasian human's, so I guess he's 'white'.Now we veer into H. Rider Haggard territory, as it turns out that all these black men are ruled by a white queen ... a very old queen, in fact, wearing Mammy Yokum high-button shoes. She too appears to suffer from Dorgan's Syndrome, as she looks nominally human but her mouth and nose are drawn to resemble a chicken's beak. (An old biddy?) She takes one look at the dog and starts screeching 'A man!'. She's surrounded by black men, but apparently she's been waiting for a talking dog with caucasian flesh tones. While the dog is talking, the hen imagines him morphing into Clark Gable (very unpleasantly drawn) and Robert Taylor. It shows how defeatist the makers of this Warner Brothers cartoon were, that they had to invoke two MGM contract actors as examples of male sex appeal. Couldn't they have used Warners actors Cagney, Raft ... even Dick Powell?This whole toon is too dumb to bear much scrutiny. When the African men look at the dog, he morphs into a fried chicken. But their queen IS a chicken, so why don't they eat HER?A previous IMDb reviewer, Randy H Farb, observes that the travelling salesman in this cartoon is a parody of a radio character named Elmer Blurt. He's correct, but Mr Farb has misspelt the name of the radio actor who invented the character: that would be Al Pearce, not Pierce. Al Pearce's radio character Elmer Blurt was nicknamed 'the Low Pressure Salesman'. As Farb notes, quite a few Warners toons featured parodies of radio or movie actors. Which brings me to the one good thing about this cartoon: the dog character (an imitation of Blurt) is actually fairly interesting in his own right, and could have been quite effective in a funnier cartoon. It's a shame that Warners never used him again. Maybe he'll show up in a Tiny Toon. I'll rate 'Jungle Jitters' just 2 out of 10. That's all, folks.

Randy H. Farb This film isn't all that bad. After all, when the Queen made an appearance in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", those who remembered her howled with laughter. The animation is clever in spoofing Elmer as Clark Gable and Robert Taylor as seen by the queen; to the cannibals, he looks like fried chicken. Elmer, the shy salesman is a parody of the radio comedian Al Pierce's character, Elmer Blurt. The characteristic knock on the door, the stammer, "I Hope, I hope, I hope.", are all part of what became Warner's biggest trademark--parodies of radio comedians. After all, every time someone would pick up the telephone, Daffy might say, "Oh, is that you Myrt?", which came from "Fibber McGee and Molly." Also, how many times have Jack Benny and Rochester, not to mention Eddie Cantor, been used to good advantage?This film starts slow, but does pick up speed when Elmer makes his entrance. He also has a great closing line, something the writers of some of these cartoons desperately needed. I recommend this film for students of old radio.