From Wikipedia
I Love to Singa is both the title of a song written by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg and a later Merrie Melodies animated short subject based on that song. Arlen and Harburg originally wrote the tune for the 1936 Warner Bros. feature-length film The Singing Kid. It is performed three times in the film: first by Al Jolson and Cab Calloway, then by the Yacht Club Boys and Jolson, and finally again by Calloway and Jolson.
During this period, it was customary for Warners to have their animation production partner, Leon Schlesinger Productions, make Merrie Melodies cartoons based upon songs from their features. One of the resulting short subjects, I Love to Singa, was directed by Tex Avery and released by Warners on July 18, 1936. The cartoon, one of the earliest Merrie Melodies produced in Technicolor’s 3-strip process, is recognized[by whom?] as one of Avery’s early masterpieces.
Plot
I Love to Singa depicts the story of a young owlet who wants to sing jazz, instead of the classical music that his German parents wish him to perform. The plot is a light-hearted tribute to that of Al Jolson’s film The Jazz Singer.
The young owl, voiced by Tommy Bond, best known as “Butch” of the Our Gang (Little Rascals) films, is unjustly kicked out of his family’s house by his disciplinarian violinist father (voiced by Billy Bletcher) after he is caught singing jazz instead of “Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes” to the reed (pump) organ accompaniment of his mother (voiced by Martha Wentworth). While wandering, he comes across a radio amateur contest, hosted by “Jack Bunny” (a pun on Jack Benny), and billing himself as “Owl Jolson” (a pun on Al Jolson), wins the contest, but not before his father has finally seen his son’s potential and allowed him to freely sing jazz.
Cultural influence
The I Love to Singa cartoon has taken on something of a cult following in recent years. In the “Cartman Gets an Anal Probe” episode of the cartoon South Park, characters Eric Cartman and Officer Barbrady lapse into Owl Jolson’s odd song-and-dance routine whenever they get hit with an alien beam. In Warners’ 2003 film Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Owl Jolson’s dance sequence from I Love to Singa repeatedly appears on the video screen of the ACME Corp. Chairman (played by Steve Martin), since he cannot properly operate his remote control. He also shows up in the Looney Tunes: Back in Action game, in the France, Las Vegas, and Africa levels. He can be turned on and shut off by being hit by either character. When approached, Bugs and Daffy will make comments.
I Love to Singa was reissued in the Blue Ribbon series in the early 1940s, but was restored with original titles. This version was included in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 2 DVD box set, released in 2004. It is also included as a special feature on the Warner Bros. DVD releases of the 1927 Al Jolson film The Jazz Singer and the 2006 CGI animated film Happy Feet.
Television airings
This was one of many WB cartoons released prior to August 1, 1948 that was sold to Associated Artists Productions (a.a.p.) in 1956. That company’s library would change hands several times over the years, ending up with Turner Entertainment in 1986, and years later became a staple of Cartoon Network’s programming. This cartoon (among a select few such as Nasty Quacks) continued to show the a.a.p. logo into the 2000s (Nasty Quacks still carries it), even as other cartoons in the a.a.p. package were remastered as “dubbed versions” without the a.a.p. logo (although a “dubbed version” of this cartoon was also made, and has aired a few times).
Edits
When this cartoon aired on TNT’s short-lived children’s program, “The Rudy and Go-Go Show,” the part where Owl Jolson is forced to sing “To Cilia” and some scenes of the auditions for Jack Bunny’s radio show were cut for time compression.
Old Time Radio Bulletin 