The snake’s tongue acts as a hand. It tells the rattle to be quiet.
After the old pepper/sneeze gag, it rubs the snake’s nose. Or maybe it’s giving the audience the finger.
Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising stick to their tried and true clichés in this cartoon. There’s a chirpy female chorus. There is a boy animal (as usual, played by Berneice Hansell) that gets warned by its mother. The little animal is rescued from an evil villain and happiness abounds.
Meanwhile, back to our snake. It hypnotises the bird with eyes that turn large and red, and points with its hand, er, tongue.
Before the snake can pounce on and eat the little bird, the worm intervenes. He plays his flute and the snake sways to the music, allowing the bird to escape. Then the snake realises what’s happened (we can tell thanks to a take with realisation lines).
Now the snake hypnotises the worm, beckoning it with its tongue, er, hand. The little bird, who started the cartoon wanting to eat the worm, comes to its rescue, flying around the snake and tying it into knots.
Oh, the cartoon ends with a couple of crows that play no part of the plot but are supposed to be comic relief. One sounds like a radio actor, the other like a refugee from Amos ‘n’ Andy.
Other than Hugh and Rudy, no one gets a credit on this short.
The two crows are meant to resemble Moran and Mack. Their first scenes together (credited to Bob Allen in the draft) lift dialogue directly from their old vaudeville sketch “The Early Bird Catches the Worm," where one of the lines spoken —“Who wants a worm anyhow?”—which is used in a number of cartoons.
ReplyDeleteI'll be damned. I've only heard snippets of them on the radio. I had no idea about this. Thanks.
DeleteSo the worm has arms, but not the snake? Natural selection is a bitch, ain't it?
ReplyDeleteThat screenshot of the rattlesnake's tongue does look like it's flipping the bird alright. (Wow, the animators I think were able to get that gag past The censors! Weird isn't it?)
ReplyDelete