Petey Pelican is “the village smithy” (though no village is seen) who is picked on throughout the whole cartoon, finally by a keg of TNT which follows him as he runs away, no matter which way he turns.
We know what’s going to happen. He’s not going to be able to escape before the blacksmith shop blows up.
Here’s the end gag. Literally. The camera pans up from the destroyed shop to Petey hanging from the words THE END.
There’s some good animation in parts and some creative layouts but whoever wrote this gives me no reason to care about Petey because we know he’ll get kicked around through the whole cartoon.
Volus Jones is the credited animator with Bob “I Can Work For Less Pay Than Art Davis” Wickersham directing. Frank Tashlin is still overseeing Screen Gems at this point.
Pinto Colvig is recognisable as Petey (the character’s name comes from the Motion Picture Herald’s review of the cartoon). I can’t figure out who the smile-voiced narrator is. More importantly, neither can Keith Scott so we may never know who it is.
At about 3:28 into the Screen Gems cartoon "A Hollywood Detour" (1942), you see a comically grand animation building, with a sign above the door reading "Home of Punchy Pelican." Which makes me wonder if that was the canonical name.
ReplyDeleteThat previous comment was by me, by the way; hit the "publish" button too fast.
ReplyDeleteI recognize a lot of what looks like Volus Jones' animation in this one. It's pretty great stuff
ReplyDeleteBut as much this was looked after by Frank Tashlin, I feel like things could've been done better story-wise and humor-wise as well.
Delete