I Can't Stand Me

Dog/trees. “Well, I’ve been sick.” “I don’t care what you say, I’m (fill in blank).” Man-on-man greeting. All of them Tex Avery gag favourites, and all found in Wacky Wild Life (1940).

Another gag involves Cartoon Rule 514: animated skunks always smell. Tex and gagman Dave Monahan pull a variation on this one that I quite like. A skunk strolls onto the screen. Narrator Bob Bruce helpfully informs us: “Animals as well as humans have learned to avoid this little fellow—the skunk.”

The camera pans right for the punch-line.

Carl Stalling toodles around with a flute and woodwinds theme of his own for this scene. There’s familiar public domain music here and there, along with Stalling favourite “Cheyenne.” The short opens with J.S. Zamecnik’s “Indian Dawn.”

Virgil Ross gets the animation credit. Chuck McKimson, Rod Scribner and Sid Sutherland have footage in this one, too, along with some effects animation at the start (by Ace Gamer?). Avery finds a place to pan over a Johnny Johnsen background with an overlay. The cartoon was reissued in 1953.