Jasper and the Beanstalk

The scare crow cons Jasper to give up his jaw harp in return for Black Magic Beans. Jasper goes home, plants them, and you know how this turns out.

It's another of George Pal's Puppetoons, which racked him up a total of seven Oscar nominations and an honorary Oscar for his work on stop-motion animation. They remain forgotten, largely because of his use of current Black stereotypes. This didn't stop anyone from working with him, including Duke Ellington.

Here the major talent on display is the voice of Peggy Lee -- or, as she was always referred to in my house back then, Miss Peggy Lee. She plays the singing harp, and sings a blues number.

Just watched on Google Video Jasper and the Beanstalk, a George Pal Puppetoon series entry about a little black boy and his adventures with a talking scarecrow. This one has the scarecrow giving Jasper some "magic beans" which grows into a giant beanstalk. The harp that Jasper rescues has a voice that sounds like the great Lena Horne but could possibly be just a perfect impersonation. Since this is only a 7-minute short, not much explanation is given of whether this was only a dream or otherwise but one doesn't care after a while since nearly all of it is entertaining. It would be nice to see this and other George Pal Puppetoons, however, in better condition than I've seen on Google or YouTube.

This Oscar-nominated cartoon transposes the popular fairy-tale of "Jack And The Beanstalk", much dealt-with by the cinema, to a modern black setting. The result is a likable take on a familiar premise – with the simple titular figure apparently the 'star' of a whole series of "Puppetoon" shorts – yet the underlying realism seems to clash with the inherent fantasy at the core of the narrative! If anything, the proverbial bean-seller (himself unaware of their magical quality, he only intends scamming the protagonist!) – flanked by a talking, and similarly roguish, crow – is amusingly rendered in caricatured (i.e. slang- speaking) terms…while the singing girl-turned-harp of the original yarn here becomes the ideal vessel through whom the latest 'swing' favorite can be presented to the general public!

George Pal did a series of shorts centeing on a character named Jasper. This one was nominated for an Academy Award and is a delightful re-telling of Jack and the Beanstalk. George Pal's shorts have all but vanished from public view, which is unfortunate, because they deserve to be seen. The disappearance of the Jasper shorts really saddens me, because they most likely have (incorrectly) vanished because of the racial content. Ironically, the Jasper shorts present blacks in a largely positive, non-stereotypical light for the most part and are very well done. Most recommended.