John Foster and George Stallings | Magic Mummy / 1933 [animated cartoon]

the cop on the beat the man on the moon and me

by Douglas Messerli

 

George Stallings, Frank Tashlin, and James Tyer (animators), John Foster and George Stallings (directors) Magic Mummy / 1933 [animated cartoon]

 

This Tom and Jerry cartoon from 1933 is basically just odd for its ghoulish subject, a stolen mummy from the local museum which Tom and Jerry must track down, following a monstrous figure underground wherein, opening up the mummy case, out pops a woman who sings (the voice of Margie Hines, who sang for Betty Boop).

     Discovering that he has been followed, the ghoul locks away the cops in a nearby tomb as he carries off his mummy down another flight to an entire theater of skeletons in front of which the mummified beauty is scheduled to perform, as she eventually does, somewhat like an Egyptian “It” girl.

   Drawing themselves a window of escape, Tom and Jerry trail the ghoul to the theater, grab the mummy in her case, and scare off the scary crowd. Tom, now alone, speeds the recovered mummy back to police headquarters, there to unveil his find: pulling back the lid, Jerry comes rolling out onto the floor.

 

   The true delight of this work, however, is not the ridiculous Halloween tale, but a song sung as the partners start out early in the day on their duties. The popular number, titled “The Cop on the Beat the Man in the Moon and Me,” is sung by two heavyset deputies back at headquarters, as they hug and kiss one another, generating a veritable love fest among all their prisoners who soon can be seen in multiple images in the manner of artist Roger Brown, dancing cops and prisoner couples in a prison world clearly gone more utterly gay than Lil Nas and his jail mates in the music video Industry Baby.

     Perhaps creators John Foster and George (Vernon) Stallings simply saw it as another brief nod to the sissy craze of the period, but this absurdist cartoon takes it much further into queer territory than Johnny Arthur or Bobby Watson ever were allowed to wander. And it’s interesting that the dead villains of this tale are so desperate they must rob the vaults of the museum for their heterosexual entertainment while the police are perfectly content with their fellow felons.

 

Los Angeles, January 27, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (January 2022)