Sunday Go to Meetin Time

Summary

Ringing bells in a lazy town announce that it is time to go to church. A black preacher with caricatured enormous lips greets his parishioners as he sings the song for which the short is named. A minstrel show dandy and his gal jazz up the song as they dance their way to church. A succession of gags featuring stereotyped black characters follows: a mammy and old uncle shine the heads of pickaninny children; a woman takes a bra off a clothesline to use as a bonnet for her twin children. Lindvall notes that mammies were "ubiquitous in films dealing with black culture".

Freleng introduces the cartoon's protagonist, Nicodemus, when Mammy Two-Shoes finds him playing dice. She exclaims, "You good for nothing! Get yourself to that church. The Devil's gonna get you sure as you're born!" and drags him off by the ear. Nevertheless, Nicodemus slinks out the door, opting to steal some chickens instead. Unfortunately, a knock on the head sends him to the "Hades Court of Justice", where a demon reviews his crimes and sends him deeper into hell. Big-lipped demons carry him to the Devil himself, who sings to Nicodemus that "you've got to give the Devil his due." The boss orders some demons to "give 'em the works," but Nicodemus wakes to find the prods of pitchforks are nothing but the pecks of chickens in the land of the living. He hears the church bells and makes haste to the meeting house.

Distribution

Warner Bros. released Sunday Go to Meetin' Time in American theaters on August 8, 1936. Since 1968, the cartoon has been withheld from distribution. At that time, United Artists owned the rights to color Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons before August 1948. Sunday Go to Meetin' Time and ten other cartoons were deemed to feature racist depictions of African Americans, making them too integral to the films for simple cuts to make them palatable for modern audiences. These eleven cartoons make up the so-called Censored Eleven.

Credits