In the climax scene, the gophers lace up a pink corset around the drugged-up dog, tie a balloon to him and let him float away to the top of a telephone poll. The dog wakes up, sees a bird, and looks around to see where he is.
That’s enough to drive him over the edge. Here are some of the drawings to show him going crazy. Some are held on twos, others on threes and aren’t on a cycle to heighten the jerkiness.
This cartoon was the product of the later version of the Bob McKimson unit, with Tom Ray, Warren Batchelder, George GrandprΓ© and Ted Bonnicksen animating.
This was a superb crossover of that beagle from the Foghorn cartoons with the Gophers. Of course, it was also one of the six shorts released in fall-winter '58 scored with the Capitol stock music (mostly Phil Green's.).SC
ReplyDeleteAs a semi-remake of "Mouse Wreckers", aside from the musician's strike, the problem I have with it is we're more used to a two-way battle between Foghorn and the Barnyard Dog, while here, he's used in a far more passive, fall-guy role (Chuck Jones went out and created a whole new character in Claude Cat to take the beating from Hubie & Bertie in the original cartoon. Aside from the higher animation budgets and full Stalling score, not having a familiar character as the victim meant there was no audience expectation of how that character is supposed to act, so Jones and Michael Maltese could do anything with him and have it feel right -- having BD be so fragile without fighting back in the latter short just seems to be a little off to me).
ReplyDeleteIt would have been better if Foghorn πππ in this cartoon instead of that pig π who doesn't speak, but just react to the Barnyard Dog's predicaments. It would've been funnier. Mel Blanc screamed (πππππ) as a duck yelling "πΈπΌπ¨πͺπ²!" π¦ and Barnyard Dig screaming in fright in the pond scene. The Spanish dub has the duck quack normally instead of shouting quack.
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