In the world of cartooning, the tradition of caricature has always been an important part of the artist's assortment of ways to make a point or to gain a laugh. In animated cartoons, this element has enhanced many short subjects. Whether traditional cartoon characters were imitating popular individuals or whether the characters themselves were recreations of celebrities or public figures, seeing the caricature helped the audience members feel that they were part of an inside joke.

It is a measure of the universality and the importance and pervasiveness of Bing Crosby's image in American culture that his caricature and specific references to his persona can be found relatively frequently in cartoon releases during the golden age of Hollywood animation from the 2930s to 1950. A quick glance at The Big Cartoon DataBase on the Internet (www.bcdb.com) turns up no less than twelve references to Bing Crosby, and my limited research in this area shows that the database, though very helpful, is by no means complete, at least in this specific case. I have examined as many of these cartoons as I could locate, and there were several additions that I discovered that had not been referenced on the database. Therefore, this study is centered primarily on short subjects I could track down and accordingly it is limited by the gaps currently present in the availability of American cartoons in this period. Since the wisecracking, more contemporary-sounding, show business savvy cartoons during the period from the 1930s to the 1950s invariably were those from Warner Bros., it should come as no surprise that references to Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies are sprinkled throughout the text as examples, and likewise, since they were the short subjects that seemed more likely to make show business references, it is perhaps to be expected that they predominate, in spite of the fact that Crosby was under contract to Paramount, not Warner Bros. However, other references to Bing Crosby may be present among the cartoons released by other studios whose work I was unable to examine.