A Gander at Mother Goose Backgrounds

Tex Avery jumps into familiar territory in the Warners spot-gagger A Gander at Mother Goose (1940). There’s Sara Berner as Kate Hepburn, a dog/tree routine and the kind of quiet-noise gag he liked to do. He sets things up as calm and peaceful, then some character screams or makes a lot of racket.

In the final gag, Tex engages in something he loved—a slow pan over a Johnny Johnsen scenic background, with something in the foreground moving at a different pan rate to create a 3-D effect. In Goose, narrator Bob Bruce recites the opening to “A Visit From St. Nicholas” (“’Twas the night before Christmas....”)



He dissolves into another background and trucks the camera in. It saves work by his animation, though not for cameraman Manny Corral.



Tex then dissolves into the pan shot. Carl Stalling plays a clock-like gong in the score for added Christmas calm effect.



Dave Monahan gets the rotational writing credit.

This is the cartoon which features Little Jack Horner with a Bugs Bunny voice and an eagle that says “Doc.” Bugs hasn’t quite been invented yet. Say, Tex, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you take the voice and the “doc,” find a rabbit and...