Milking the Milk Bottle Gag

Tex Avery made a few “don’t-make-noise” cartoons but Deputy Droopy was a little different than the rest because he had two guys trying to avoid being loud, so he could milk his gags longer. One guy is the centre of the gag, then the next guy follows.

You know how this works. The sheriff is having a nap in his office. The bad guys want to rob his safe. Droopy tries to get the bad guys to make noise to wake him. In this sequence, Droopy places a lobster (convenient, isn’t it) on the chair of one of the bad guys. The other bad guy captures the noise in a milk bottle and lets it loose on a nearby knoll.



Gag’s not done, son. The second bad guy shows up to milk it.



Walt Clinton from Avery’s unit animated this, along with the Hanna-Barbera unit (Ed Barge, Ray Patterson, Ken Muse and Lew Marshall). No doubt this was the result of Avery’s unit being laid off in March 1953. Tex stayed behind for a bit to finish up what cartoons he had in production.