Starting with snow white

Snow White 
tale by representing her in this light. One cannot hear the 
echoes of the earlier fairy tale in Clampett’s tale, one can only see a handful of Disney 
images, distorted by the distinctly American animated version that was produced.
Indeed, Clampett’s vision throughout the short appears more intent upon 
commenting on American culture, as seen through his gaze, via animation. How better to 
do so than through an adaptation of the pre-eminent model of animation at the time, 
Snow 
White and the Seven Dwarfs
? In this response, Clampett made 
his
animative voice the 
focus of a wider audience, where the artistry of Disney in that industry had already 
overshadowed so many others. 
When images such as Disney’s witch-like Queen re-enter then—pictured with a 
huge, red nose with a wart, wearing a black hooded robe, as well as red and white striped 
tights—despite the classically referenced coloring, one recognizes by this point that such 
connections with Disney’s animation and the preceding 
Snow White 
tradition are empty.
As with each of the earlier usages of Disney’s version, Clampett only fosters affiliation 
with the earlier animator’s work toward the purpose of forwarding his own animation.
The same is true in Clampett’s alignment with Disney’s filmic model which unified song 
and story.
Although much has been made of Clampett’s affinity for African American 
music, which quite literally underscored the narrative of his version, one cannot help but 
note that Disney too had a strong soundtrack supporting his narrative plotline and 
character development in 
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Unsurprisingly, Clampett 
similarly focused on music as the glue to hold his narrative together. In fact, music and 

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performance were so significant to the production that “Clampett took his animators out 
to Hollywood’s black nightclubs for inspiration and performers loaned their voices and 
authenticated the work” (Beck 103). Clampett did not have Disney’s storytelling craft to 
productively shape his animation or that of the other animators working alongside him, 
but he could provide guidance by exposing them to environments and scenes filled with 
the African American music and dance of his own musing and influence. These 
alternative sites of inspiration, however, led Clampett to produce a 
Snow White 
driven not 
by story, undergirded by song, but driven by song and more moderately reflecting the 
story. 
Nevertheless, one effect produced by music and story functioning together is the 
similar creation of a unified whole. In 
Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs
then, “jazz, and 
boogie woogie music” paired with “African American swing” hold the cartoon together, 
as “characters rhyme and scat their lines to the background beats” (Breaux 176; Lehman 
77; Breaux 176). Jazz and/or swing music, if only in the background, runs through 
almost the entirety of the short. And it is not only the rhythmic or lyrical language of the 
characters that further melds narrative and song within the animation, but the movements 
of characters likewise seem attuned to an inner beat. The image of the Mammy figure 
who first appears, prepared to tell the child upon her lap the story of So White, is rocking 
in a chair. This sets a rhythmic tone, which is amplified by louder, more vibrant jazz 
music that strikes up in the background as she begins her tale. When an audience sees the 
queen, described by the narrating Mammy, this figure, also embodying the music, is 
pictured lounging on her throne, rhythmically gulping down “Chattanooga Chew-Chews” 

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(Clampett). The dialogue of the characters, moving forward, while not always set to 
lyrical rhymes, still engages the beat, as do their bodies, bobbing, tapping, or dancing to 
the beat. In fact, not only the Mammy and Queen, but every character introduced 
thereafter steps onto the scene and into center stage by means of dance, or with some 
other bodily movement speaking to the pulsing beat. Prince Chawmin’s toes are tapping 
as he sidles up out of his car, swinging his hips before speaking. After he announces his 
interest in So White, an audience is visually introduced to this central character, first by 
means of her outwardly thrust bottom, bopping up and down to the beat as she washes 
clothes in a tub. The seven dwarfs, army soldiers, likewise introduce their role by half-
marching through a song and dance number. As the narrative continues, so too does the 
rhythm wound into the movements of each character’s body. So important are music and 
rhythm to the short that the story, the tale itself, takes a back seat to the performance 
viewed. However, perhaps this was Clampett’s intent, as it only further emphasizes a 
new effect produced by privileging that music and song reverberating throughout