Between a Rock and a Rock

The cattle-raising wolf tries over and over to hide behind rocks from Droopy’s sure-shot guns (Droopy’s reading comic books while the guns do all the work)—but to no avail.

The guns keep cutting down the rocks. First, to a teeny stone, then to The Thinker, and then to Venus DeMilo. The last two are intact for a moment before more bullets fly and shoot the heads into pebbles.



The cattleman runs down the winding road into the distance and then into his ranch house. I like how his cattle pay no attention to him.



Drag-a-Long Droopy has some wonderful gags, with Heck Allen assisting Tex Avery with them. Ray Patterson and Bob Bentley animate this short along with Mike Lah, Grant Simmons and Walt Clinton. Tex plays the cattle owner.

Hungry Sheep

Droopy’s sheep eat everything in Drag-a-long Droopy, including a river and an Indian teepee.



Tex Avery explored the eat-everything concept in full in the next cartoon he put into production, Billy Boy.

This 1954 short features Avery’s usual animators—Walt Clinton, Grant Simmons, Mike Lah and Bob Bentley, as well as Ray Patterson. The “Moo moo moo/baa baa baa!” and “Hey, taxi!” routines in this short are among my most favourite moments in MGM cartoons.

Wagon Ho Ho Ho

Droopy manages to thwart the cattle rancher throughout one of my favourite Tex Avery cartoons, Drag-a-Long Droopy (1954). The bad guy rancher jumps into sheepherder Droopy’s covered wagon, but because anything can happen in a Tex Avery cartoon, Droopy and his mule defy logic and gravity by going off on one direction and the wagon in another.



It takes seven frames for the wagon to turn into a surrey after hitting the cliff; it’s a gag Avery used in other MGM cartoons. These are two consecutive drawings.



The end result before Avery wipes into the next scene. Gritting his teeth, no doubt, Scott Bradley scores “The Old Grey Mare” in the background (various accounts have it Bradley hated old hat music in “his” cartoons).



Avery provides the voice of the wolf, Bill Thompson is Droopy while Mike Lah, Walt Clinton, Grant Simmons, Bob Bentley and Ray Patterson provide the animation in front of Johnny Johnsen’s backgrounds.

Deadeye Droopy

The bad-guy cattle rancher in Drag-a-Long Droopy (1954) is a dead shot. Watch that buzzard.



Droopy, of course, is better. Watch those ducks.



Heck Allen provided the story for the short with animation by Grant Simmons, Mike Lah, Bob Bentley and Walt Clinton, plus Ray Patterson on loan from the Hanna-Barbera unit.

Sheep!?

Favourite Droopy? That’s easy. It’s Drag-a-Long Droopy (released in 1954). The “moo-moo-baa-baa” and “hey, taxi” scenes are as funny as anything Tex Avery did.

There are some great expressions, too. There’s the underplayed little burro who casually moseys along. And there’s the cattle baron, who has a dishevelled take when he’s told (by a worried cow) that sheep are on the way. This is one of the in-betweens.



Ray Patterson was added to the Avery unit for this cartoon, which had Grant Simmons, Walt Clinton and Mike Lah animating, along with Bob Bentley.

Dad Gum Television

The cattle rancher chases sheepherder Droopy into a saloon and urges the men inside to “shoot him down.”



Four consecutive frames.



The wolf hears gunfire. He peers inside the saloon.



A long pan from right to left.



“Dad gum television,” complains the wolf.



There are great scenes aplenty in Drag-a-long Droopy (released 1954), with Tex Avery himself playing the wolf (Bill Thompson is Droopy). Ray Patterson, Bob Bentley, Mike Lah, Grant Simmons and Walt Clinton are the animators.

We Attack At Dawn

Tex Avery cartoons aren’t merely exercises in outrageous takes and ridiculous puns. There’s solid posing, too. After all, over the years, Avery had ex-Disney artists in his unit, though they may not have worked for Uncle Walt all that long or in major positions.

Check out these poses (and an in-between or two) from Drag-A-Long Droopy, where the rancher wolf (played by Avery himself) decides to attack the Droopy’s sheepherders at dawn.



Animator Ray Patterson was plopped into the Avery unit for this cartoon along with future business partner Grant Simmons, as well as Mike Lah, Bob Bentley and Walt Clinton. If I recall, all but Bentley spent time at Disney before eventually moving to MGM.