Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat

Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat
Release date	March 28, 1941
Crew
Voices	Mel Blanc Nellie Lutcher
Directed by	Walter Lantz
Written by	Ben Hardaway
Produced by	Walter Lantz
Music by	Darrell Calker
Animated by	Alex Lovy Frank Tipper

Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat is a pre-Civil Rights 1940 hit boogie-woogie song written by Don Raye. A bawdy, jazzy tune, the song describes a laundry woman from Harlem, New York whose technique is so unusual that people come from all around just to watch her scrub. The Andrews Sisters and Will Bradley & His Orchestra recorded the most successful pop versions of the song, but it is today best recognized as the centerpiece of an eponymous Walter Lantz Productions cartoon from 1941.

The short version, released on March 28, 1941 by Universal Pictures features no director credit (Woody Woodpecker creator Walter Lantz claims to have directed the cartoon himself), with a story by Ben Hardaway, animation by Alex Lovy and Frank Tipper, and voice work by Mel Blanc. The short is awash with blackface African-American people and culture, and of life in the rural Southern United States.

The "Scrub Me Mama" short is today in the public domain. Clips from it are featured in Spike Lee's 2000 satirical film about African-American stereotypes, Bamboozled.

The film's setting, Lazytown, is not to be confused with the Icelandic children's television program of the same name.

Plot

The short opens to an orchestral rendition of Stephen Foster's "Old Folks at Home", immediately setting the scene in the rural South of blackface minstrelsy. The setting is Lazytown, perhaps the laziest place on earth. Neither the town's residents (all stereotypes of African Americans) nor the animals can be bothered to leave their reclining positions to do anything at all. Their pastoral existence is interrupted by the arrival of a riverboat, carrying a svelte, sophisticated, light-skinned woman from Harlem (who bears a resemblance to Lena Horne), whose physical beauty inspires the entire populace of an all-African-American "Lazytown" to spring into action. The visiting urbanite admonishes one of the town's residents, "Listen, Mammy. That ain't no way to wash clothes! What you all need is rhythm!" She then proceeds to sing "Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat", which the townfolk slowly join her in performing. Thus begins a montage which is the short's centerpiece. The townsfolk are infected by the song's rhythm and proceed to go about playing instruments, and dancing suggestively. By the time the young light-skinned lady from Harlem is due to reboard her riverboat and return home, she has succeeded in turning a dark-skinned Lazytown into a lively community of swing musicians simply by singing.

Lyrics

In Harlem there's a little place where everyone goes

To see the way a washer woman washes her clothes

If you like Boogie Woogie rhythm, she's got a beat

Let the Boogie Woogie washer woman give you a treat.

On every afternoon at one the sessions begin

And all the boys from all the bands come down and sit in

They sit around and knock each other out when they play

While the Boogie Woogie washer woman washes all day

Rub diddle ub dub, that's just the way she rubs

Rub diddle ub dub, that's just the way she scrubs

Rub diddle ub dub, she wears out all her tubs

She rubs and rubs her knuckles right on down to the nubs.

Rub diddle ub dub, that's how she kicks it off

Rub diddle ub dub, she keeps it nice and soft

Rub diddle ub dub, till someone hollers

"Aw, scrub me maman, with a Boogie beat!"

You really ought to visit there is you've never been

It doesn't cost a penny, just come down and walk in,

If you like Boogie Woogie rhythm you'll get a treat,

Let the Boogie Woogie washer woman give you the beat.

Notes

• This cartoon was never aired on CTC or Record.
• Like most of the 40s and 50s Walter Lantz cartoons, this cartoon hasn't been released on DVD yet.
• Fell into the public domain in 1969. This cartoon has been withheld from distribution by Universal since 1949 due to its offensive portrayal of African-Americans. The decision was made after a strong objection was raised by the NAACP upon the cartoon's reissue in 1948. The entire episode was a shock to Lantz who prided himself on avoiding problems with the censors. He repeatedly stated that his cartoons were never meant to offend anyone. After the 1948 decision, Lantz made a major effort to make sure that offensive caricatures of any racial or ethnic group would never appear in his cartoons again. He also personally made sure that Scrub Me Mama would never be distributed on television.

Gallery

Video