Aesop's Fable: The Tiger King

Looking at this Terrytoon from 1960, I feel a mild sense of despair. While the rest of the animation industry was nearing its trough, with no money to spend and the only source of income ill-paying TV, this one has all of its technical issues sorted away: full animation, very good backgrounding and an engaging jazz score. With all this, what are we offered? A story for small children in which we are told to be content with what we are, because that is what we are meant to be.

It reminds me of something Joseph Barbera said in the late 1970s, that he yearned for a return to animation in which "when a cat chases a mouse, he doesn't have to stop and teach him how to blow glass or weave a basket. My wish for Christmas is that they would leave education to the schools and entertainment to us."

The United States was in the middle of a struggle for civil rights for Blacks, and here the lesson offered to small children was to be content with one's lot in life. It would definitely have been better to leave education to the schools and for Terrytoons to have tried to do something that made children and adults like me smile.