About a month ago, we created a bit of a stirred by reporting the rumor
that Disney plans to release one of its long-withheld classics, Song of the
South, on DVD. We opened the floor to your comments, and boy, did we receive
a flood of support for the post-antebellum live-action and animation combo.

Some of you expressed a special fondness for the Uncle Remus character,
who served as the film’s narrator, so we thought we’d take a little time this
week to tell you a little more about Remus’ origin.

In 1881, Joel Chandler Harris, a struggling white journalist who’d risen
from the hard-scrabble roots of Georgia poverty, published Uncle Remus: His
Songs and Sayings. The collection of quotes and expressions were transcribed
in a style that was new for the time: dialect. Working from his memories of
tales told to him by Georgia slaves during his rough childhood, Harris culled
the collection with attention to the details of African American Southern speech

patterns.

Aside from Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harris was among the first authors to
effectively employ African American southern dialect in narratives. And perhaps
even more than Stowe’s, Harris’ use of authentic colloquialism served his
transcribed tales and added to their rustic appeal.

He would go on to published other books starring Uncle Remus, including
Nights with Uncle Remus (1883), Uncle Remus and His Friends (1892), and
Uncle Remus and the Little Boy (1905). The works became children’s
classics, eventually translated into twenty-seven languages. Aside from the
character’s appearance in Song of the South, he was also featured in 1919 Kine
Komedy Kartoons from Phillips Films, and some even credit the character for
introducing Brer Rabbit to American audiences, Brer being considered a loose
precursor to our current rabbit superstar, Bugs Bunny.