Here’s one from Homesteader Droopy (released 1954). Indians charge. The wagon train’s cow and cattle circle the wagon.
The Indians ride in a ring around the wagons and then turn themselves into a merry-go-round.
That gag’s much like one Freleng used in Sweet Sioux (1937).
Sweet Sioux has the bonus of Carl Stalling using The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down to help the gag. Avery was stuck with Man on the Flying Trapeze, probably about the best circus tune at his disposal at MGM.
I'm guessing Avery really admired Freleng's work (or the work of some of his writers)......
ReplyDeleteDue to the far faster timing, Avery doesn't linger over the gag the way Friz did 16 years earlier. It makes the second gag funnier since what was supposed to be a major bit of humor in 1937 was simply a throwaway gag by '53, even if Scott Bradley's background music wasn't as good (and I believe the Sweet Sioux gag was Carl Stalling's first use of "The Merrie-Go-Round Broke Down". You could tell he fell in love with it, because it makes its way into several other cartoons as background music before becoming the Looney Tunes' theme a few months later).
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