People are voting emotionally.

A Brilliant Conflict

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

. . . but whooooooever thought that owls were humorous in the first place? I suppose it IS refreshing to find a cartoon from the 1930s in which Mel Blanc is not supplying nearly ALL the voices. According to this page, you have Billy Bletcher, Tommy Bond, Johnnie Davis, Joe Dougherty, Bernice Hansen, and Martha Wentworth supplying the voices of the primary members of the I LOVE TO SINGA cast. Though I must admit none of these names rings much of a bell in my head, I assume that they denote a half dozen DIFFERENT people and not just six degrees of Mel. An essential aspect of this parody's target, the feature film THE JAZZ SINGER starring Al Jolson from nine years earlier, is pretty much glossed over in this spoof, which is too bad in a way. A cartoon owl in Blackface could have been a hoot. Jolson himself would have been in big trouble if Hitler successfully added America to the Third Reich, and in Michigan alone he had Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and Father Charles Edward Coughlin (a.k.a., "Hitler's priest") on his side. Possibly when I LOVE TO SINGA was made in 1936, with Hitler so much more powerful than in 1927, the cartoon's producers were afraid to risk being on the Gestapo's hit list in the near future by making light of the double whammy of combining Jewishness and Blackness into one character as the more courageous Jolson did in the source material.

Directed by the great Tex Avery, "I Love to Singa" is a superb Warner Bros. cartoon featuring some great swing music. The story is about a musical owl family, the father of whom is Prof. Fritz Owl, a teacher of strictly classical music with absolutely no tolerance for jazz. He and his wife bear four sons, the first three of whom humorously pop out of their eggs sporting tuxes and displaying their immediate gift of being able to sing or play classical music. The fourth son, named Owl Jolson, sports a red coat & blue bow tie and, to his parents' horror, sings jazz! His favorite song is "I Love to Singa," which he happily sings & swings throughout this wonderful cartoon.Here are my favorite moments from "I Love to Singa." Owl Jolson's parents are hilarious in their horrified reactions to his being a jazz singer; the mother faints and the German-accented father angrily calls him a "crooner," a "hotcha," and a "falsetto" before kicking him out of the house. At the G-O-N-G broadcasting station, one of the contestants is an overweight hen who sings the first line of "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" before getting the gong and almost getting stuck in the chute! When the delightful Owl Jolson shows up at the radio station, he dances & sings his old swinging standby - what else? - "I Love to Singa." "I Love to Singa" is a fun little cartoon with a great story and terrific music. It's also nice to see in the end that Owl Jolson's parents finally welcome the fact that they have a jazz singer in their family.

This was and is one of the hippest cartoons I've ever seen. My dad, brother and I would laugh and sing along with Owl Jolson, mimicking the body moves. I think I was about 6 or 7 when I first saw this amazing takeoff on the Jazz Singer. It got me asking questions of my old man and resulted in my being hip on Jolson and his impact on show biz. Pretty heady stuff for a first grader. Thanx Tex Avery for getting a little kid to love jazz and get a little smarter in the process. This isn't just any cartoon. This is a little piece of heaven on earth. Anyone doubting Avery's genius (a word I use very sparingly) should check out this gem and show it to your kids. They can never be too young.

I saw this cartoon for the first time when I was under the age of ten, didn't know it was a "movie spoof" (which is mentioned in other sources)until I became an adult. It is one of my favorite cartoon shorts of all time (and I'm over 50, though not as old as this 'toon!) The "tune" sung by "Owl Jolson" gets stuck in your head once your mind wanders that way! I haven't seen the cartoon in several years, but I find myself remembering it fondly! Love it! Love it! Love it! I was also surprised to find that one of the voices is done by a former child star who was part of the "Our Gang/Li'l Rascals" films. If you are a "baby boomer" like me and haven't seen this classic cartoon, you are truly missing a gem...another "obscure" music-related cartoon favorite: "Russian Rhapsody" (with "Gremlins from the Kremlin")