Outlines of a Circus Cop

Anyone want to guess what this is?



These are three consecutive drawings from “The Dizzy Acrobat,” a 1943 Woody Woodpecker cartoon. A circus cop is chasing Woody but ends up in a cage with a hungry lion. He slams the lion’s mouth shut, and slips around in place before running out of the scene. The speed is indicated by outlines of parts of the cop’s body.

This is something found in a bunch of Lantz cartoons around this time and it’s found several times in this cartoon. Here are three of the drawings (on twos) of the cop racing into the cage.



You can see this cartoon has the fun, gooney version of Woody. Emery Hawkins gets the only animation credit. Woody’s voiced by Kent Rogers in this one, though Mel Blanc’s stock laughter is on the sound track, too.