Yes, He's Crooked

The puns are almost non-stop in The Shooting of Dan McGoo (1945). “You know,” says Droopy to the viewers. “I think the dealer is crooked.” The camera pans to the left.



Metro was extremely high on this cartoon. It took out a full page ad in all kinds of trade publications.

The Showmen’s Trade Review of April 21, 1945 endorsed the cartoon:

The Shooting of Dan McGoo (Kids Itself)
MGM—No. W-545 8 mins.
The laughs in this Technicolor travesty on the Robert W. Service poem "The Shooting of Dan McGrew," starts early in the nine satisfying minutes for the subject kids itself, and that takes courage, even in cartoons. Its satiric vein continues with a hot number rendered by Red Hot Riding Hood as “the lady known as Lou,” in the Malemute Saloon in Coldornell, Alaska, in which the voice of Imogene Lynn is a mellifluent contribution. It is worth booking whether quality shorts are appreciated.

Incidentally, the title of this cartoon wasn’t original with MGM. The July-August 1931 edition of Radio Digest reveals the NBC Red network broadcast a show of detective send-ups by comedians “Snoop and Peep.” One was entitled “The Shooting of Dan McGoo” (it aired in southern California on KECA Los Angeles).

Bill Thompson is in the Midwest on military duty, so other than the first line, someone else is voicing Droopy. Frank Graham is the narrator and Sara Berner is Lou.