Road Hog

It would appear Friz Freleng and the writing staff at the Leon Schlesinger studio thought taxi drivers were maniacs on the road.

Can there be another explanation why a little boy car that wants to be a cab turns into an unrepentant speed demon in the 1937 Merrie Melodie Streamlined Greta Green?

The would-be taxi fills up on “ethel” gas (as opposed to “ethyl”) and decides to out-race the 515, which is chugging along railway tracks in re-used animation from Rhythm in the Bow, a 1935 Bugs Hardaway cartoon. He passes the train and looks back in satisfaction.



But something’s ahead. The car’s little hat jumps up in surprise (Earlier, the gas station attendant’s hat flips over, like in a Jack King cartoon).



Freleng cuts to a visual gag—a road hog. It even oinks.



He can’t get past Mr. Hog.



The hog is quite pleased with himself.



Uh, oh!



The girders of a bridge change the situation.



I’m pretty sure the “road hog” gag wasn’t original, but it fits nicely here. Since a “hog” is involved, Carl Stalling puts “Rural Rhythm” behind this sequence.

I can only picture what Friz and the writers thought as they tried to build a cartoon around, or shoehorn in, a Warner Bros.-owned song. The song “Streamlined Greta Green” has nothing to do with this cartoon. The little car is boxy, not streamlined. No one in it is named Greta Green, who “looks like Dixie’s cotton queen,” according to the lyrics.



The train barrels along to the strains of “Shuffle Off to Buffalo” and when the car fills up with high-octane gas, we hear “My Little Buckaroo.” This opening of the cartoon may have my favourite arrangement of “Merrily We Roll Along,” punctuated by piccolos.

Berneice Hansell squeals as the little car, Mel Blanc adds a voice and I think the mother car is Martha Wentworth, but that’s a guess on my part.

Cal Dalton and Ken Harris receive screen credit for animation. Maybe some day, someone can positively ID the background artists in these mid-‘30s Warners cartoons. Whoever did this used the same distinctive lettering on signs in the background of a number of cartoons. Is it Art Loomer? I wish I knew.

And, now, for your listening pleasure, the Little Ramblers....