Monday 28 August 2023

Blowing (Up) A Nose

George clamps a washtub over a little flame, then tells Junior to grab the flame when he lifts up the tub (the thought Junior might get burned doesn’t seem to occur to him).



But the flame is four or five steps ahead of the Red Hot Rangers (from the cartoon of the same name). Sticks of dynamite are found in the most convenient places in the Tex Avery world, and the flame just happens to have one.



Naturally, you can guess what happens. Junior grabs the dynamite, not the flame, and shows off his captured item to George.



Thanks to a convenient ashtray in the woods, Junior helpfully puts out the smouldering nose.



Avery and writer Heck Allen have a couple of running gags. One is Junior bending over and being kicked in the butt by George. Avery finds different ways for Junior’s butt to react.



The running gag has a post-script. The flame crosses the screen from right to left every time he puts one over on the two, with Avery and Allen finding different ways for him to move.



There’s a turnabout to the running gag at the end of the cartoon.

The characters were designed by Irv Spence, with animation by Preston Blair, Ed Love, Ray Abrams and Walt Clinton. Johnny Johnsen painted the fine backgrounds on this 1947 MGM release.

1 comment:

  1. Tex recycled that "extinguish the nose in an ashtray" gag decades later in the Kwicky Koala episode "In a Pig’s Eye".

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