Horning in on a Gag

Here’s a stretch in-between drawing from the Little Roquefort cartoon, No Sleep For Percy (1955). The mouse is trying to jar himself loose after Percy the cat rolled up a car window, with Little Roquefort’s head stuck at the top.



The mouse lands on the horn. The sound is pretty weak, at least on versions of the cartoon in circulation. Maybe they didn’t want to drown out Phil Scheib’s atypical score.



The horn is evidently loud enough to wake Percy. Here are random frames of Jim Tyer’s spasmatic animation. Heads that shrink and expand (and do it several times for emphasis), expanded fuzzy fur, eyes that are different sizes, it’s all here.



Percy gets up to chase after the mouse. The cat’s butt is on the ground. Tyer gives him impossible anatomy.



This is just in case theatre audiences mistook this for Tom and Jerry.



This was the final cartoon with Little Roquefort and Percy. Connie Rasinski was the sole director for well over a year and a half and new characters, like Good Deed Daily, were being tried out. Paul Terry hadn’t sold out to CBS yet, but when that happened, Gene Deitch came in to run the creative part of the studio, and another set of new characters arrived.