#Cab Calloway

[citizenscreen]

Cab Calloway and Pearl Bailey performing on 'The Pearl Bailey Show' in 1971.

[hotvintagepoll]

Elsa Lanchester (The Bride of Frankenstein, Witness for the Prosecution, Mary Poppins)—Surely somebody's already submitted Elsa Lanchester for this right? Right??? Because her scrungle levels are OFF THE CHARTS in literally everything. The way she's Katy Nanna straight-up refusing to spend another minute with Jane and Michael Banks because she has DIGNITY thank you very much. The way she's Mary Goddamn Shelley stuck listening to Lord Byron mansplaining literature like "ha ha maybe even YOUR little monster story will be published" and she shoots back "It *WILL* be published, *I* think!!!" in the most bright-as-nails fuck-you-Byron voice imaginable. The way she's a nurse herding her lawyer charge through a sordid love-triangle case and we gradually realize the real love story was between her and the lawyer all along. The way she's a clandestine witch casting hexes on telephones, the way she's a princess's PA and helps an old friend steal an invitation card, the way she's a cleaning lady who goes to Germany to personally assassinate Hitler, the way she's a posh village worthy trying to impress Danny Kaye, the way ERRGHH i could go on just look at her scrungle.

Cab Calloway (Stormy Weather, Hi De Ho)—TRULY THE SCRUNGLIEST. Nobody ever did it like him, your honor. The music, the dance moves, the hair, the unbridled charisma that comes across just the slightest bit unhinged. If I had to build the pillars of scrungle, they would be as follows: talent, showmanship, sportingness, and absolute commitment to the bit, all of which Cab Calloway has in SPADES. He was a great actor, a great singer, AND a great bandleader. Truly, nobody was doing it like him, before or since.

This is round 5 of the contest. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. If you’re confused on what a scrungle is, or any of the rules of the contest, click here.

[additional submitted propaganda + scrungly videos under the cut]

Elsa Lanchester:

Cab Calloway:

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[rhetthammersmithhorror]

Snow-White | 1933 — a Betty Boop cartoon

[blacklacerabbit]

Cab Calloway circa 1933 ✨🤍

[omgthatdress]

Cab Calloway

the absolutely insane rizz this man had

[the-blueprint]

Cab Calloway & The Nicholas Brothers - Jumpin Jive - 1943

Here's a clip from the movie "Stormy Weather" (1943) featuring Cab Calloway and his orchestra performing "Jumpin Jive".

[musickickztoo]

Cab Calloway

December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994

[twixnmix]

Cab Calloway and his Cotton Club orchestra on stage at the Trocadero Theatre in Elephant & Castle, London, 1934.

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Cab Calloway - Minnie the Moocher 1931

"Minnie the Moocher" is a jazz-scat song first recorded in 1931 by Cab Calloway and His Orchestra, selling over a million copies and was the biggest chart-topper of that year. "Minnie the Moocher" is most famous for its nonsensical ad libbed ("scat") lyrics. In performances, Calloway would have the audience and the band members participate by repeating each scat phrase in a form of call and response, eventually making it too fast and complicated for the audience to replicate. The song is based lyrically on Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon's 1927 version of the early 1900s vaudeville song "Willie the Weeper".

"Minnie the Moocher" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999, and in 2019 was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress.

In 1978, Calloway recorded a disco version of "Minnie the Moocher" on RCA Records which reached number 91 on the Billboard R&B chart. "Minnie the Moocher" has been covered or simply referenced by many other performers. Its refrain, particularly the call and response, is part of the language of American jazz. At the Cab Calloway School of the Arts, which is named for the singer, students perform "Minnie the Moocher" as a traditional part of talent showcases.

In 1932, Calloway recorded the song for a Fleischer Studios Talkartoon short cartoon, also called Minnie the Moocher, starring Betty Boop and Bimbo, and released on March 11, 1932. Calloway and his band provide most of the short's score and themselves appear in a live-action introduction, playing "Prohibition Blues". The thirty-second live-action segment is the earliest-known film footage of Calloway. In the cartoon, Betty decides to run away from her parents, and Bimbo comes with her. While walking away from home, Betty and Bimbo wind up in a spooky area and hide in a hollow tree. A spectral walrus—whose gyrations were rotoscoped from footage of Calloway dancing—appears to them, and begins to sing "Minnie the Moocher", with many fellow ghosts following along, during which they do scary things like place ghosts on electric chairs who still survive after the shock. After singing the whole number, the ghosts chase Betty and Bimbo all the way back to Betty's home. In 1933 another Betty Boop/Cab Calloway cartoon with "Minnie the Moocher" was The Old Man of the Mountain.

Calloway performed the entire song in the movie Rhythm and Blues Revue (1955), filmed at the Apollo Theater. Much later, in 1980 at age 73, Calloway performed the song in the movie The Blues Brothers. Calloway's character Curtis, a church janitor and the Blues Brothers' mentor, magically transforms the band into a 1930s swing band and sings "Minnie the Moocher" when the crowd becomes impatient at the beginning of the movie's climactic production number.

"Minnie the Moocher" received a total of 71,1% yes votes!

[citizenscreen]

Cab Calloway (December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994)

[hotvintagepoll]

Cab Calloway (Stormy Weather, Hi De Ho)—TRULY THE SCRUNGLIEST. Nobody ever did it like him, your honor. The music, the dance moves, the hair, the unbridled charisma that comes across just the slightest bit unhinged. If I had to build the pillars of scrungle, they would be as follows: talent, showmanship, sportingness, and absolute commitment to the bit, all of which Cab Calloway has in SPADES. He was a great actor, a great singer, AND a great bandleader. Truly, nobody was doing it like him, before or since.

Oskar Werner (The Ship of Fools, Fahrenheit 451, Jules et Jim)—I can’t even think about Oskar Werner without having the urge to carry him around in my mouth like a mother cat with their kittens. He is beautiful in such a sad, scrungly, bedraggled way, I want to bundle him up in a warm cat bed and snuggle all his troubles away. This guy has an equally sad real-life story to match his sad, scrungly demeanor. He was born in Austria and married a half-Jewish woman, and they had to flee from Nazi persecution to save their lives. He’s told such sad tales of them starving while they hid during the war. Thankfully he was able to eventually find success as an actor, but it was short-lived as he was an alcoholic and died at the young age of sixty-one. The first thing I ever saw him in was Fahrenheit 451, but he is his scrungliest in The Ship of Fools where he plays a character achingly reminiscent of himself.

This is round 1 of the contest. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. If you're confused on what a scrungle is, or any of the rules of the contest, click here.

[additional submitted propaganda + scrungly videos under the cut]

Cab Calloway:

Oskar Werner:

[lindyloowho]

@hotvintagepoll

[rhetthammersmithhorror]

Snow-White | 1933 — a Betty Boop cartoon

[theafroamericaine]

The Zoot Suit in Black Culture

In today's history lesson, we will discuss the vintage zoot suit, a men's suit with high-waisted, wide-legged, tight-cuffed, pegged trousers, and a long coat with wide lapels and wide padded shoulders.

The Chitlin Circuit (during the era of US racial segregation) was a network of clubs, theaters, and other venues where Black entertainers were allowed to perform, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary. These hotspots had comedy shows where entertainers such as Pigmeat Markham would dress up in baggy suits as part of their routine. This took place in the 1920s, eventually giving way to the more flamboyant, stylish and colorful zoot suit.

Born out of the inner city ghettos and African-American creativity, the suits were first associated with cities such as Harlem, Detroit and Chicago in the 30's. Musicians helped popularize the suit with a more tailored distinguished look, Cab Calloway, an American entertainer, famously wore the zoot suit in the movie, Stormy Weather (1943). Jazz and Jump Blues were all the rage back then and you could spot these suits at the dance halls.

“The zoot was not a costume or uniform from the world of entertainment. It came right off the street and out of the ghetto.” -Harold C. Fox, a Chicago clothier

According to Cab Calloway's Cat-ologue: A "Hepster's" Dictionary (1938), he called the zoot suit "the ultimate in clothes. The only totally and truly American civilian suit."

It was the signature look of the African-American subculture of Hepcats. A young Malcolm X could be seen wearing one. Dancers to businessmen to singers to instrumentalists, all dressed in zoots. It wasn't just about making a fashion statement, but a sense of cultural pride.

The look picked up in other communities such as the Mexicans, Filipinos, Japanese etc... forming their subcultures respectively.

On June 3, 1943, a string of attacks against Mexican-Americans started in Downtown Los Angeles, CA. Approximately 11 sailors got into a heated confrontation with some young Mexican-Americans and proceeded to assault them. The next day, hundreds of sailors traveled to a predominantly Mexican-American settlement in East Los Angeles and began another assault. Harassing anyone who wore a zoot suit, making them strip and burning their clothes. White residents and servicemen used the excuse that the zoots weren't "patriotic" due to it containing large amounts of fabric. This is during World War II were rationing food and fabrics were seen as necessary. This vicious and violent behavior spread to different cities leaving nothing, but devastation and trauma in its wake. These were known as the infamous Zoot Suit Riots of 1943.

Source 1 Source 2 Source 3 Source 4

[ando666detonao]

HI-DE-HO! 🎲🎶