Laughing Gas

Some cartoon gags are so bizarre, you have to admire their genius. Others make so little sense, they leave you wondering what the writer was thinking (Columbia cartoons of the late ‘40s are good at this). Then there are some odd ones that are in between.

One of the latter is in the Flip the Frog cartoon Laughing Gas (1931). Flip is a dentist trying to pull out an aching tooth. Instead, he pulls out a hot water bottle. Then a pair of panties.



Now the gag gets really strange. He pulls out a mass of something that turns out to be a little sedan—which starts dancing and honking.



Flip’s kitty assistant takes it out of the office. She doesn’t flush it down the toilet, like the off-key note in the Van Beuren cartoon Piano Tooners (1932). Too bad, because it would have been a better gag.



The idea of a living little car inside a walrus isn’t funny. It’s just weird.

The only animation credit on the cartoon is Ub Iwerks’.