Swing Wedding

Swing Wedding is a 1937 animated musical short by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Directed by Hugh Harman, it is part of the Happy Harmonies cartoon series. The cartoon portrays a wedding celebrated by a group of frogs in a swamp. The frogs are designed as caricatures of various African American celebrities of the 1930s, such as Ethel Waters, Stepin Fetchit, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller and the Mills Brothers. Though hailed as "'one of the finest one-reelers in all of animation" by some commentators, others have derided the use of Zip Coon-type figures and stereotypical dialogue. The film also contains a controversial scene in which a frog musician uses his trumpet valve as a syringe. The scene plays on the stereotype of black jazz musicians using drugs before performing. This cartoon was re-released in a shorter version called "Hot Frogs" in 1942.