The Sun Sets (With Some Help)

Egghead is used as a running gag device in several of Tex Avery’s cartoons, including the first of his travelogue spoofs, The Isle of Pingo Pongo (1938).

He pops up a few times, carrying a bass fiddle case, asking “Now, boss?” to narrator Gil Warren. “No, not now,” Warren responds. Finally, we get to the end of our visit to Pingo Pongo, and Warren launches into the usual “As the sun sinks slowly in the west.” Only it doesn’t. Carl Stalling’s soundtrack and Warren’s narration start again. The sun won’t budge. Egghead returns. “Now, boss?” The narrator agrees. Egghead shoots the sun out of the sky and lets out with a gooney horse laugh as the iris closes slowly on the screen.



These screen grabs may be the best quality you’ll ever see of this cartoon. Half of Pingo Pongo features gags involving Africans or South Pacificans or blackened natives of some kind with oversized lips so it’ll likely never be restored for public viewing.