The Hole Gag

Tex Avery once remarked he was getting worn out directing at MGM and needed time off. Avery had some gags and situations he liked and kept reusing them, as if he were stuck coming up with new ones. The cartoons are okay but it had to difficult coming up with new ways to tell the same example.

(As a side note, it wasn’t like viewers today who can gorge on Avery cartoons all day and see the familiar gags. These appeared periodically in movie theatres).

Here’s the hole-in-the-body gag Avery put on the screen several times. This version comes from The Chump Champ, released in 1950. It’s one of several Droopy-vs-Spike spot-gag cartoons. In this sequence, the two are duelling in a sack race. Spike plants a bomb in Droopy’s sack. The two line up and Spike shouts “Go!!” Like other Avery spot-gags, this one explains itself.



The next three frames are the first, third and sixth of a head-shake take. Mike Lah animates this; the final mouth shape appeared on characters Lah drew on The Huckleberry Hound Show (1958-59).



My favourite version of this gag is in Ventiloquist Cat (released 1950) when a duck serenely flies through the hole in Spike’s body.

Rich Hogan assisted Avery with gags, and Walt Clinton and Grant Simmons animated this along with Lah.