Is That a Bomb in Your Pants?

Rice-Puddin’ the Mad Monk believes he has escaped from angry villagers by turning his escape donkey into a helicopter in Wake Up the Gypsy In Me (1933).



Then he realises one of the villagers has slipped a bomb in his pants.



There’s an explosion and Rice-Puddin’ turns into a familiar face in early 1930s cartoons.



Ghandi isn’t the only famous caricature. I’ve lost track of how many studios used a gag where an orchestra leader turns around and turns out to be Paul Whiteman.



Friz Freleng and Larry Silverman are the credited animators.

Lew Pollock, Harry Miller and Lew “Monkeys is de Cwaziest Peoples” Lehr wrote the song in 1932; it is the only time it is heard in a Warners cartoon. The words “Wake up the gypsy in me” are found in Cole Porter’s 1929 song “Find Me a Primative Man,” while Ira Gershwin’s “Embraceable You” heard in the Broadway show Girl Crazy a year later says how someone can “bring out the gypsy in me.”