i discovered recently that, though people may know the song, they don’t know where ‘zip-a-dee-doo-dah’ came from. well, gather round, children, for i shall tell you a tale. see, in the post-civil war south, a fat, sad-looking white reporter named joel chandler harris appropriated some old, old stories from the african-american storytelling tradition. then he sold rights for them to another white guy, walt disney, who produced a film called song of the south which featured a contented slave entertaining his master’s children with these stories – and, to show his utter joy at his lot in life, singing ‘zip-a-dee-doo-dah’. oh yeah, and the film’s african-american star couldn’t attend the premiere in atlanta because THE SCREENING AND OPENING NIGHT PARTY WERE SEGREGATED. plenty of sunshine, coming his way. now, of course, it’s tough to find a copy of the movie in the us: disney has decided it’s too controversial, and is no longer making the movie available. somehow i saw it in the 1980s, however, and it’s stuck in my mind ever since; my father loved that tar baby story, and br’er rabbit was one of the recurring characters in the stories he made up for me as a child. apparently disney uses the song for lots of publicity material, though – it’s just too good to sit in the vault – but most people don’t know the story behind it.
i discovered recently that, though people may know the song, they don’t know where ‘zip-a-dee-doo-dah’ came from. well, gather round, children, for i shall tell you a tale. see, in the post-civil war south, a fat, sad-looking white reporter named joel chandler harris appropriated some old, old stories from the african-american storytelling tradition. then he sold rights for them to another white guy, walt disney, who produced a film called song of the south which featured a contented slave entertaining his master’s children with these stories – and, to show his utter joy at his lot in life, singing ‘zip-a-dee-doo-dah’. oh yeah, and the film’s african-american star couldn’t attend the premiere in atlanta because THE SCREENING AND OPENING NIGHT PARTY WERE SEGREGATED. plenty of sunshine, coming his way. now, of course, it’s tough to find a copy of the movie in the us: disney has decided it’s too controversial, and is no longer making the movie available. somehow i saw it in the 1980s, however, and it’s stuck in my mind ever since; my father loved that tar baby story, and br’er rabbit was one of the recurring characters in the stories he made up for me as a child. apparently disney uses the song for lots of publicity material, though – it’s just too good to sit in the vault – but most people don’t know the story behind it.