Tuesday 26 January 2021

The Old Wolf Grind

A wolf and Woody Woodpecker are trying to eat each other, with maybe the most uncomfortable gag being when the wolf thinks he’s got Woody in a meat grinder, but it’s his own tail instread.



Here are some expressions as the wolf rotates the handle on the grinder.



Finally, he gives the handle a forceful last push to make ground woodpecker. Then comes the sharp pain of understanding. He flies into the air, yelling. A nice touch is the animated word “Yeow” as he soars upward. Tex Avery loved that type of thing, too.



The animation credits for Who’s Cookin’ Who (1946) say Les Kline and Grim Natwick but, of course, the funnest animation is from Emery Hawkins. Shamus Culhane directs, and he has really picked up the pace from the Alex Lovy cartoons of the early ‘40s. Will Wright plays the wolf.

2 comments:

  1. RobGems68 Wrote:
    Amazingly, Channel 50 in Detroit left this meat grinder gag in when they re-ran this cartoon throughout the late 70's-early 80's. Channel 50 had a habit of crudely cutting out violent gags and especially blackface gags, but a number of gags that would seemingly be violent today would be slipped in without a cut. Darn You, Peggy Charren! A lot of censored cartoons didn't make much sense stoy-wise when they butchered up the (usually 16-mm) prints.

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    1. Rob, my guess is because you don't see the grinding. You just see the head. It's not really gruesome; Culhane is leaving it up to your imagination.

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