Look - Bob Clampett was an extremely talented animator. He made some of the more distinctive shorts for Loony Tunes and Merry Melodies over the years, and always his frames were alive with action and intensity and physical comedy. There's always something going on when it comes to his cartoons, and it's not simply gags; Clampett's cartoons are effective because of the bursting energy within the frame, how many movements his animation team accomplish with the characters, all the personality and mayhem (this was especially an influence years later for Kricfalusi in his Ren & Stimpy series). It's a shame then that he poured his efforts into this, which is a tasteless and insensitive 'parody' of Snow White.One of the buzzword-terms going about right now is 'White privilege' and for good reason - this is what it means to live in a society when white people have all the power and influence. I have no idea whether Clampett was a racist or had feelings that black people all had big lips and acted like fools and buffoons, but the depiction at the least shows that he and his animators could've given less than a rat's ass about the intentions. This isn't satirical in any way because there's no point, it's simply showing these characters in the most cartoonish way, but not with anything creative or cleverness. If there was a point to it or the point of view had something to say about black stereotypes (using Snow White as the jumping off point), but there is none. That there were zero black animators may seem like moot, but it isn't, as there's clearly no voice to be shared from the other side - it's just a bunch of white guys using black figures for the hell of it.I give the short a couple of marks only because it is animated with the same passion and verve as the other works that made Clampett so valuable to Warners. But in its way it's as bad as something like Birth of a Nation - it didn't have that movie's affect on culture of course (a 7 minute cartoon didn't inadvertently bring back the KKK), and yet it's kind of unwatchable as something so tone-deaf. It's currently one of those "banned" cartoons that you can only find online or in bootleg form, and maybe for good reason; while there may be some historical reason to watch it, to check it out for the same reason one would like One Froggy Evening or Duck Amuck is insanity.

"Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs" is basically Warner Bros' version of Snow White in the hood, very loosely based on the successful Disney movie from 6 years earlier. And even if I did not really enjoy these 7 minutes here, I believe that people who call everything racist only because there are black animated characters in here need to get a clue. It's absolutely not offensive by any means to people who emphasize equality. And if you do then stop complaining that there is actually also a black people version of Snow White here, because this is exactly what equality means. I only wish it would have been better. Clampett, Fister and Blanc of course have done many very funny cartoons, but this is not one of them. One reason to watch it is maybe to find all the historic/military/political references in here as this was done over 70 years during the days of World War II. But other than that, it is far far from Warner Bros' best. Thumbs down.

I do not watch cartoons normally, but I genuinely enjoyed this. The music and rhymes are quite clever. Everything fits together to make an impressive production. The story is different enough from Snow White to avoid feeling like a rip-off. The racial stereotyping is extensive. It shocked me in a way but, in another way, I thought that it was not all that different from Dave Chapelle shows or gangsta rap films. I wondered to myself, "What if I did not know that the maker of this film was White or Black?" It is very strange how the stereotypes in this film are still used today by mainstream Black comedians and entertainers. However, the slogan of the Murder Inc. firm is definitely racist against the Japanese.

Coal Black's obscurity helps cartoon buffs to describe it in gushing terms. Animation historians call it one of the greatest cartoons that Warner Brothers put out. It's a product of its time, they write—it came from an America that still enjoyed a minstrel show. Hollywood was giving the public black mammies, Steppin Fetchit, shucking and jiving, Amos and Andy. We can view those live-action films with a sense of historical distance— the film stock looks ancient, the acting looks hammy, and the actors themselves are generally dead. However, cartoons don't age like that. Though the film needs restoration, Prince Chawmin' looks to be as ludicrously vibrant today as he was in 1942— just more shocking.To those who say, "The film exists and it's wrong to deny that…" Well, yeah. That doesn't mean we should put this into rotation on Cartoon Network. Your average viewer doesn't know or care about context. Coal Black provokes a visceral reaction. It churns up the ugliest parts of American history, reminding us that we're still a long way from having racial inequities worked out. Maybe Clampett was just having fun, but in today's climate and without commentary (i.e., without couching it in a documentary), Coal Black can look degrading.Bob Clampett's style was to exaggerate, stretch, distort, and rubberize. Applying this style to the racial stereotypes of the day—even if he did so in fun, or even in admiration—Clampett produced some truly grotesque character designs. It makes Coal Black hard to reconcile. Freeze-frame it at some points and it looks like racist propaganda. Watch it as a cartoon, however, and it rollicks along good-naturedly.Coal Black is Clampett's celebration of black culture and jazz, and to make it he fought with the studio to bring in as many black musicians and voices as he could. It's a jubilant film, and to watch it ignorant of race is to enjoy a bunch of rubbery cartoon characters in a twisted, high-speed parody of Snow White (there's even a jab at Disney's overuse of rotoscoping—check the beginning of the dance number). Jazz and action bounce along in wonderful syncopation, and seven minutes fly by so fast that they feel like two. Rod Scribner's animation is often astounding.It's worth hunting for, it's worth talking about, and in ten years maybe it'll be time for Cartoon Network to dust it off, restore it, and put it on an official DVD. In the meantime, enthusiasts can have the satisfaction of tracking down a rare, paradoxical cartoon made by a brilliant collaboration.