Subduing Sammy

Screwy Squirrel wants to let us in on a secret about how he tricked Meathead all though the cartoon. A second Screwy jumps into the frame. “We was twins all the time,” he tells us.



Tex Avery used the “multiples to outsmart” gag to end cartoons before this, going back to Tortoise Beats Hare (1941) at Warner Bros. But, despite the dialogue and what sounds like cartoon-ending fanfare, Avery surprises us. The short’s not done.

A second Meathead appears and says “So was we.”



But it’s not over yet. Avery and gagman Heck Allen take us back to the beginning of the cartoon when Sammy Squirrel skipped along looking as Disney-esque as possible. “My cartoon would have been cuter,” he joyously declares.



“Oh, brother, not that!” Exclaim the Screwys and Meatheads, who pounce on saccharine Sammy to end the cartoon.



Ed Love, Preston Blair and Ray Abrams animated Screwball Squirrel, Screwy’s 1944 debut.