Iron Ball, Folks

There’s a narrator (John Wald) in Batty Baseball but Tex Avery and his anonymous writer are content to let the action do a lot of the talking.

There are a number of “pitching” gags. This one involves the pitcher hurling a shot put instead of a baseball. The force of nature causes the bat to shake when the heavy ball hits it.

What to do next?

Simple. The vibration from the bat transfers to the batter, then along the ground to the pitcher. Avery’s animator tosses in reaction expressions along the way.



Being a Tex Avery cartoon, there has to be a sign and commentary to the audience on the action. In the scene below, you can feel the weight as the pitcher struggles to lift the ball, dropping it at one point. A caption appears on screen, the pitcher gets some comic relief from it, and comments to us “Good joke!” before guffawing like Goofy (He’s played by Pinto Colvig so that shouldn’t be a surprise. Maybe Pinto helped with the gags).



My guess is Ed Love is responsible for the above scene. Preston Blair and Ray Abrams supplied animation as well.