Monday 11 November 2019

The Old Body Leak Gag

Before Joe Barbera and Charlie Shows dragged out the old “gets shot then leaks water after drinking it” gag in the Yogi Bear cartoon Tally Ho Ho Ho (1958), Barbera used it a few years earlier in a Tom and Jerry short.

Here it is in Posse Cat (1954) when the old Western codger shoots at Tom for yet another screw up in trying to catch Jerry.



Irv Spence, Ed Barge, Ken Muse (who also seems to get opening scenes) and Ray Patterson are the animators. Bob Gentle gets a background credit.
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2 comments:

  1. Loren Broaddus11 November 2019 at 09:18

    One of the better later Tom and Jerry's in my opinion. No cute ducklings anyway. Although it's a shame Tom lost the stripe between his eyes in these later 50's cartoons; it took away part of his distinct look. At least people like Irv Spence were still around to wring the most life they could from the series before it was over for good.

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  2. Hans Christian Brando14 November 2019 at 18:45

    To be fair to the purveyors of these stock gags, there was a time when these cartoons were shown theatrically once and then withdrawn, presumably never to be seen again. Even if a particularly diligent moviegoer saw every cartoon every studio put out, months or even years might go by before he got a sense of deja vu from a familiar-seeming bit of animated business. Besides, there's always a new audience for been-there-done-that ("Seinfeld" was hailed as an innovation--imagine, a sitcom about a stand-up comic and his wacky friends!--to a generation that never heard of "The Jack Benny Show").

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