Shootin' Match

The Western cliché of one-upsmanship gets trotted out for a parody in Tex Avery’s Drag-a-long Droopy.

The bad guy is dead shot. To prove it, he tosses a nickel into the air. Droopy responds in kind, with a bit of a different result.

Did you notice something about the shooting? The wolf is big so he can pull the trigger on his rifle with ease. But Droopy is so small, he shakes when firing.

Ray Patterson joins Bob Bentley, Mike Lah, Grant Simmons and Walt Clinton in animating this, my favourite Droopy cartoon.

Screwy is Not Dead

Tex Avery reuses animation and dialogue at the end of Lonesome Lenny (1946).

The first time, Lenny crushes a bone and a water dish, as he tells us he wants a little friend, that he had one once, “but he don’t move no more.” Lenny reaches into a pocket and pulls out a dead mouse (as Scott Bradley plays “Taps” in the background.

The second time, he pulls out Screwy Squirrel.

Except in this case, Screwy DOES “move.” He opens an eye and holds up a sign. Bradley doesn’t play “Taps.” He plays “If I Only Had a Brain” because, if Lenny had a brain, he’d know Screwy is alive.

Some animation fans love to connect dots and invent their own history. Screwy is dead, they say, because (Dot 1) “Tex didn’t like Screwy,” (Dot 2) “Tex didn’t make another cartoon with him,” (Ergo) “So, he killed him.”

Sorry, fans. Screwy doesn’t play a harp while ascending to the heavens, or wear a halo, Avery’s signals that a character is dead (see the ending of Batty Baseball). Screwy is still alive. Come to think of it, Sylvester’s nine lives and a gowned, haloed Elmer Fund rise toward heaven in Back Alley Oproar, but no one every claims Friz Freleng killed them.

But, yeah, Tex didn’t make any more Screwy cartoons after this one. Too bad. I liked Screwy and some of the gags were pretty clever and inspired.

Four Mouths in One

All kinds of things come alive in the Oswald short The Navy (1930). Among them are a concertina, a ship, and an anchor.

Oh, and funnels. Not only do they come to life, they sway and sing like a quartet. On top of that, they pull off a gag beloved by the Van Beuren studio—they combine their “mouths” into one and continue singing.



Jimmy Dietrich has a nice jazzy score with trombones toward the end.

Clyde Geronimi, Manny Moreno and Ray Abrams are credited animation, with Tex Avery, Pinto Colvig and Les Kline mentioned in smaller lettering. With Avery and Colvig on staff, you can guarantee gags will be crazy. There’s even a “two mouths” gag involving Oswald, the same as in the 1933 Lantz cartoon Merry Dog.

Hitching a Ride The Speedy Way

Speed lines and outlines predominate in one scene of Porky the Wrestler.

A wiener dog is trying to hitchhike to the wrestling matches.



The dog stretches out then zooms back into position. Here’s how the animator (and the painter) handles it. These are consecutive frames.



The cartoon was copyrighted in 1936 but released in early 1937. Elmer Wait gets an animation credit. He managed to live to see it. He died July 20, 1937 at the age of 23. To the right is an ad from the Los Angeles Evening Express when he won third prize in a contest in 1926. He was 12.

At the risk of beating the dead old grey mare, but on the “Porky 101” there’s a sound edit between the title theme music (“Puddin Head Jones”) and the first cue of the cartoon. I don’t know the reason for this because the soundtrack on other versions of the short is just fine. There’s also a picture jump and another edit when the scene changes to a wrestling fan lifting up a ratty old window shade to look outside.

Joe Dougherty is Porky, except for when he yoo-hoos like the future Daffy Duck when Mel Blanc takes over. Dougherty's cartoon voicing career was about to end as Leon Schlesinger added more and more professional actors to his roster.

This is the Tex Avery cartoon with the sequence where the bad guy wrestler swallows a pipe, starts blowing smoke like a locomotive, then Avery and the writers heap one train gag on top of another in a wonderful moment of twisted logic.

A Tex Limo

The artwork in the cartoon Page Miss Glory (1936) is modern. In a way, so are the gags. Tex made fun of things in what became familiar and, in some cases, copied by other cartoon studios.

For example, Tex loved ridiculing long limos. He does it in this cartoon, as the car with (the imaginary) Miss Glory pulls up at a hotel. The hood ornament is a parody of one found on luxury Packards of the day. And there isn’t just one spare tire in the back, but a row of them.



Tex isn’t through. There’s a topper gag with a compact roadster pulling up with a hood ornament that reminds of something you might see in a Bob Clampett cartoon (Clampett was an animator in this short).



Tex and the writing crew even took a pot shot at the Warners’ concept of forcing Merrie Melodies cartoons to contain part of a Warners-owned song. The Warren-Dubin title tune comes to a sudden stop mid-lyric because a champagne bottle has to be forced open.

Only designer Leadora Congdon gets a screen credit; none of the animators do, nor does Avery.

Good Night!

Perhaps this shot is the most famous ending of a Tex Avery cartoon.



The cat and mouse chasing each other, trying to get an advantage on the other by beefing up their bodies with a bottle of Jumbo-Gro, “run outta da stuff.” That means the cartoon has to end. After the mouse (played by Frank Graham) wishes “Good night,” Avery cuts to the two at the top of the Earth, giving a friendly wave goodbye to the theatre audience as the cartoon ends.

The final scene is a switch of the ending of Ride Him, Bosko! from 1932, where Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising run outta da stuff (in this case, gags) and abruptly end the cartoon.

King-Size Canary was released in 1947 with Heck Allen assisting Avery with gags, Bob Bentley, Ray Abrams and Walt Clinton animating, and Johnny Johnsen painting the backgrounds.

A theatre in Wichita Falls seemed to think Avery was a cartoon character but we know better. He was one of the finest directors ever to come along in animation.

I'm In a Cartoon

One of the appealing things about Tex Avery cartoons is the characters (at least in some of them) know they’re acting in front of a theatre audience.

An example I’ve always liked is in A Feud There Was, released in 1938. A hillbilly gets his beard shot and shortened. He looks down at it and at us, and quips “The old grey hair, she ain’t what she’s used to be.”



Gramps cracks himself up with his line.



His joke gets no reaction. He looks down and at us again and remarks, “Well, it sounded funny at rehearsal anyway.” As if cartoons are real movies/plays with a rehearsal.



Later a chicken comments on the action to the viewers, and a member of the theatre audience (in a typical Avery silhoutte) shots at a feudin' enemy on the screen.

The usual theatre-manager/correspondents to the Motion Picture Herald were happy with Avery’s efforts. “A very good cartoon. It is one of the best ‘Merrie Melodies’ that I ever saw,” “Vitaphone colored cartoons are usually very good and this one was no exception,” “A very entertaining cartoon in color showing the feuds that go on in the timberlands in a risqué and humorous style.” Conversely, another bluntly made this assessment about Mickey’s Parrot: “These Disneys are not getting better. We like the Merrie Melodies just as good and they don’t cost as much.”

Avery’s cartoon released prior to this was Cinderella Meets Fella and Daffy Duck in Hollywood came next; both fine shorts.

The cartoon was re-released in 1943 and 1952.

Sid Sutherland is the credited animator, with Tubby Millar receiving the rotating story credit.