How to React to Finding Gold

Here’s a Tex Avery take from Detouring America (1939). Tamer and slower than when he picked up the pace after arriving at MGM in 1941.

Avery uses five drawings for the miner to wag his head as he stretches backwards while the arm holding the nugget stretches forward.



The head wags back another four drawings. Avery’s animator resists the temptation to use the same drawings in reverse order.



Here’s the extreme drawing of the eye pop. There are two in-betweens before it. Avery holds it for two frames.



This takes up 13 drawings, about a half-second of screen time. Remarkably, Avery would make this sort of thing even faster in later years. And funnier.

Ham Hamilton gets the animation credit on this cartoon. I don’t know how long he was in the Avery unit.