I don’t know when the first sucker/transformation gag ever showed up in a cartoon, but it’s in this 1939 short.
The owner of the Eureka Bar grabs the sucker, hauls him inside, and forces him to sit down at a card table with some other guy. Why? Beats me. The cards shuffle themselves in mid-air (that’s a gag?) and then the guy slowly pulls five cards out of his vest.
Yes, it’s the old “five aces” gag. I must admit Carl Stalling’s honky-tonk piano adds some atmosphere.
This whole scene becomes pointless when someone runs into the bar and yells “They’ve found gold in the hills!” The plot changes altogether.
Mel Millar gets the story credit, while Gil Turner is the credited animator. Joe Twerp and Mel Blanc provide voices.
Unless a car or mine car is moving, this short has Jonesian 1939 slow pacing but without the attempt at personality animation Chuck was going for, and with character designs that seem to be pulled from 2-4 years earlier in the studio's history (though at least the knockout drink gag would make it in better form to Art Davis' "Mexican Joyride" seven years later).
ReplyDeleteI've always had a soft spot in my heart for this one. That spot dates back to my first viewings on TV, some time in the 1950s, so admittedly there at least some nostalgia behind that softness. But though there aren't any really laugh-out-loud gags, I think it's amusing throughout, and visually, if not groundbreaking, it's fun to look at. There are more than a few Warner cartoons that make me impatient to see end, but this one has never, to this day, been one of those.
ReplyDeleteHad forgotten about this, but I enjoy this...and the doggies are funny anthromorphic characters..!
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