Tuesday 18 January 2022

Cartoon Rule 219: Hypodermic Needles Stab You

Yes, folks, whenever a cartoon character has a hypodermic needle, you know what’s going to happen.

Here’s an example from The Tree Surgeon, a 1944 MGM cartoon under the direction of George Gordon. The cartoon stars a donkey as a doctor trying to cure the ills of a tree that doesn’t want to get a shot. He shakes the surgeon off a limb.



The vitamin somehow turns the donkey into a quasi-tree.



About half-way through the cartoon we learn a termite is causing all the woes for the sick tree. It ends with the donkey again turned into a tree and the termite getting set to snack on him. I was going to say another Cartoon Rule is “termites always win,” but that wasn’t the case in the Woody Woodpecker short Termites From Mars.

Arnold Gillespie, Mike Lah and Ed Barge are the animators here. No story or background credits.

1 comment:

  1. As a kid I found the image of him turning into a tree (especially what happens to his feet) really creepy. It makes me think of the Pleasure Island scene from Pinocchio. Only that scene was meant to be creepy, and this scene was meant to be funny.

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