Clean Pastures (1937) - Merrie Melodies Theatrical Cartoon Series

Where the Saints Go Marching In

Alas for the racism! This cartoon was probably responsible for my continued Catholicism; for this Heaven is something worth being good all one's life. This Heaven, to me as a kid in New Orleans, was worth more than all the classic depictions put together, for this one was fun. As fun as Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights without the next panel of the horrors of Hell. I had no problem with black people running Heaven; I remember Chase's drawing of Louis Armstrong playing his trumpet in the clouds on the day of the great man's death and no one in my family had any problem with that depiction. I will love this cartoon until I die, when I hope to be admitted to a place like it.

Even though its censorship is quite understandable, one still pines at the denial to the world of a real musical masterpiece of a cartoon.