September in the Rain

September in the Rain is an American one-reel animated cartoon short subject in the Merrie Melodies series, produced in Technicolor and released to theaters on December 18, 1937 by Warner Bros. and Vitaphone. It was produced by Leon Schlesinger and directed by I. Freleng, with musical supervision by Carl W. Stalling. Timed at 5 minutes and about 50 seconds, September in the Rain may well be the shortest among all Warners Bros. Merrie Melodies or Looney Tunes animated short subjects. Due to the controversy engendered by the sequences considered to depict racial stereotyping, it has been most commonly edited to a much shorter running of four or even three minutes, with the invariable excision of the Fats Waller–Louis Armstrong "Nagasaki" production number and, frequently, the Al Jolson title song performance. Although not listed among the Censored Eleven, the cartoon has been exhibited infrequently, even in its brief censored version. Re-released under the "Blue Ribbon" label, September in the Rain was shorn of its original title card containing all the credited names, however, the recovered card, along with those for other "Blue Ribbon" reissues, is available for viewing.