An authoritative and valuable resource for students and scholars of film
animation and African-American history, film buffs, and casual readers.
It is the first and only book to detail the history of black images in
animated cartoons. Using advertisements, quotes from producers,
newspaper reviews, and other sources, Sampson traces stereotypical black
images through their transition from the first newspaper comic strips in
the late 1890s, to their inclusion in the first silent theatrical
cartoons, through the peak of their popularity in 1930s musical
cartoons, to their gradual decline in the 1960s. He provides detailed
storylines with dialogue, revealing the extensive use of negative
caricatures of African Americans. Sampson devotes chapters to cartoon
series starring black characters; cartoons burlesquing life on the old
slave plantation with "happy" slaves Uncle Tom and Topsy; depictions of
the African safari that include the white hunter, his devoted servant,
and bloodthirsty black cannibals; and cartoons featuring the music and
the widely popular entertainment style of famous 1930s black stars
including Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, and Fats Waller. That's Enough
Folks includes many rare, previously unpublished illustrations and
original animation stills and an appendix listing cartoon titles with
black characters along with brief descriptions of gags in these
cartoons.
