Uncle Tom's Crabbin' is a 1927 Felix the Cat short produced by Pat Sullivan.
Plot[]
The cartoon starts with Felix walking in the dead of winter, looking downbeat as Old Man Winter goes on the prowl. After some traveling, he travels to the deep south of the states, where the countryside and weather is much more pleasant. Felix is pleased with where he's at, and then hears music playing, coming from none other than Uncle Tom, who is playing a banjo as his daughter dances. Felix happily joins in the dancing, but things take a turn for the worse when Tom's music wakes up Simon Legree, who grabs his whip and uses it to pull Tom and his banjo towards him. Legree warns Tom not to wake him up again, and heads back to bed. Felix, who was shocked and in tears at Tom's plight, immediately resolves to help him out. He heads over to his cabin, and sees his wife cooking pancakes.
Felix hastily grabs the frying pan from her, yanks off two of his own whiskers, and attaches them to the pan, turning it into a makeshift banjo for Tom. Felix strikes up a lively tune, and Tom and his daughter start dancing to it happily. Unfortunately, the music wakes up Simon Legree again, who angrily leaps out of bed with whip in hand. Tom and his daughter see him coming and hide in their cabin, and Felix wonders what's wrong until he sees Legree heading after him. Felix gets creative and turns the banjo into a unicycle, evading the slaver.
Felix then turns the banjo into an improvised bow and uses his own tail as an arrow (a question mark he thinks up creates a new tail for him), landing a bullseye right in Legree's face, who is only dazed. Legree then sees a pile of rocks and angrily starts throwing them at Felix, who simply deflects them back at him with the frying pan. Legree is still unfazed and continues the chase, and Felix realizes the frying pan is getting him nowhere and takes off. Up ahead, Felix finds none other than Little Eva, who offers Felix a ribbon in her hair, which turns into wings and carries him away. Legree, annoyed, gets creative and turns his own whip into a pair of stairs to try and reach Felix in the air, but Felix evades him by letting go of the ribbon and spawning a parachute to fall down safely. Legree gets creative yet again, and turns his whip into a hunting dog to catch Felix.
Felix hightails it, but sees a sign nearby saying "100 Miles to Somewhere". Felix grabs the 100 off of it and turns it into a scooter for himself. It doesn't help much, so Felix runs into an ice truck and flees the hound across the ice cubes. They run outside and Felix finally fights the hound, beating it back into a limp whip. Felix realizes that the chase has led him all the way back to the wintry north, but he's satisfied where he is as the cartoon ends.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The short was re-released with sound by Copley Pictures
- Felix uses his own tail as an arrow to attack Simon Legree at one point.
- The black characters are drawn in this stereotypical cartoon style, but in spite of this, they're portrayed very sympathetically, their plight is distinctly not played for laughs, and Felix is on their side right off the bat, especially when Simon Legree shows up.
- When Simon starts whipping Tom, the camera cuts away from him, and all we see is Legree brandishing the whip, Felix crying in shock at the sight of this, and the final result of Legree smashing apart Tom's banjo.
- Besides being loosely based on Uncle Tom's Cabin, the scene where Felix evades a dog through the ice truck is a homage to the scene from the book where Eliza flees across the broken ice field of the Ohio River, carrying her young son while being chased by hounds.
- The cartoon's copyright has been expired for a long time, but due to its controversial subject matter, it's unlikely to get a home video release, unofficial or official, any time soon.