Shirley Temple, "Animal Crackers in My Soup" (1 Viewer)

Just learned that "Animal Crackers in My Soup" is a Shirley Temple song, which I am sure everyone else in the world knew already. I had no idea. I grew up watching her movies...I guess Buk has lots of Thirties/Depression references...more than I realized! Here she is, in all her adorable cuteness...

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How about Rin Tin Tin then? I suppose she kept the illusion of the American Dream going for millions during the depression and you have got to admire anyone who is asked by Gary Cooper no less, for her autograph. I remember watching her films on a Saturday morning as well Laurel and Hardy, Charles Chaplin etc. But definitely not for modern tastes.
Graham Greene on the other hand with his usual lovely caustic outlook (humanity is two colours - black and Grey) ran into trouble in the thirties in a magazine film review:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat..._to_make_of_the_novelist_s_sexual_review.html

I definitely do think his review was tongue in cheek, sarcastic, always on the lookout for the seedier side of life.But he dared to take a pop at an idol of the time and some less innocent admirers.
 
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[...] "Animal Crackers in My Soup" is a Shirley Temple song, [...]
he not only used this as a title of a marvelous short-story.
It's also the beginning of his: 'I shot a man in Reno':

Bukowski cried when Judy Garland sang at the N.Y. Philharmonic, Bukowski cried when Shirley Temple sang "I Got Animal Crackers in my Soup" ...
 
ugh, i can't stand shirley temple!

cloying is too mild to describe her...

It reminds me a little of those child beauty pageants. It always makes me feel a little weird when I hear children repeat something that an adult makes them say, especially political messages. Ronald Mc Donald gives me the same feeling.
When I was a kid, we had plays in school. My school was run by nuns. In one of them I played the role of a child who had been indoctrinated by the nazis and I had to kick my chair, insult my parents and spit on a crucifix. Of course the virgin Mary appeared from nowhere to save my soul. I was really good at it because I was already angry for having been picked for the role. :(
 
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reminds me a little of those child beauty pageants [.......]
BlackS: what these adult persons have done to you with this 'play' was truly Abusive and Indoctrinating and, ...hmm, ...well, ...very Catholic. There's No excuse for that.

And I do agree with you that these child-beauty-pageants are as disgusting (nearly) as any other physical or psychological abuse of children [NOT Exactly and Literally of course!!!! - didn't mean to downsize the suffering of certain 'true' victims!!!].
(in Germany we don't have this pageant-sort of legal abuse on stages or TV [at the moment!!], so one needs to look them up on the web to know about the issue.)

But I think, the Shirley-Temple-thing is very different from that.
A fucking toddler-pageant is not the same as having a little cutie singing children's songs in front of a cam.
(by which I don't mean, I'd be a fan of Shirley Temple - I ain't.)
 
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Probably not for everyone, but I'm just saying that when I was a kid and saw ST do her cute routine, I had that same weird feeling. That is just me...
I surely don't mean to pop anyone's party balloon. :)

 
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