Invisiblity is Screwy

Screwy Squirrel spends most of The Screwy Truant (released in January, 1945) finding ways to bash Meathead with a mallet.

The chase takes them into farm country, where Screwy notices a barn being painted. Here`s where director Tex Avery and gagman Heck Allen go next.



The stretched nose on Meathead is from Screwy honking it.



And it's on to the next gag.



The pace of this cartoon gallops along as Tex fills it with gags. For example, he uses only three frames between when Meathead notices the mallet to when Screwy bashes him with it (four frames).

As animator Mark Kausler learned from personal experience, Avery wasn’t fond of the Screwy cartoons, but they have some really funny gags. (My favourite in this cartoon is probably the 500 yards of phoney squirrel tail). Boxoffice loved it. Its opinion in the April 28, 1945 edition:

Hilarious. Speedily paced and gagged to the limit, this short-reel comedy will delight patrons of either sex and all ages. In it Screwy Squirrel not only plays hooky from school but manages to bedevil the pursuing truant officer into a state of near frenzy. A novelty ending brings in Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf for a sequence of additional laughs.

Showmen’s Trade Review liked Screwy, too. It proclaimed this cartoon “Good” in its May 12, 1945 edition, continuing:

Screwy Squirrel is a pleasurable enough character, and his antics with a truant officer who would lead him on a straight path furnish seven minutes of good entertainment.”

It could not be better worded.