One one-shot, and a lot of familiar faces today, as Warner, Paramount, and Terrytoons all provide contributions continuing to exploit the animation industry, graphic print media, and studio system, as characters confirm their toon existence for all they’re worth.

The Big Drip (Paramount/Famous, Screen Song, 11/25/49 – I. Sparber, dir.) – A typical Screen Song entry, but featuring a surprise “lost” ending that proves the characters have enough consciousness of their screen existence to know where to dock as home sweet home. At the Miracle Weather Bureau (“If we guess the weather, it’s a miracle”), a stork fires a marble shot inside a pinball machine marked “Weather Calculator”. The ball continually bounces off one of the bumpers, chalking up a score on the “rain” wheel of 40 days. The animals organize a Jungle Ark Project (work now or swim later). An elephant jumps on planks positioned atop the ship’s railing, bending the planks in a U to form the hull braces. A buzzsaw formation of termites is unleashed from a bottle, sawing logs into planks. A cross-eyed hippo assists Buzzy the crow by hammering nails as Buzzy holds them – well, actually, missing the nail, and flattening Buzzy instead. A giraffe serves as crane to hoist deck planks atop the ship, and sawfish cut away the overhanging edges to fit the planks into place. Pelicans serve as paintpots with their pouched bills, for painting the sides of the ship. A Christening ceremony splits the front of the ship on the impact of the bottle – but a convenient zipper zips the bow up ship-shape again. Then comes the storm. One cloud installs a water tap on its side to release its load, while a lightning bolt opens up the underside of another cloud like a can opener. A turtle bravely stands his post at the ship’s wheel, every now and then disappearing into his shell to pour out water from within with a bailing pail. The ark opens a giant umbrella over itself to help the situation. Eventually, the clouds wring out the last drop as if from a dish towel, and the sun comes out to lead us in song. An elephant and mouse pull at a rope which we assume is fastened to an anchor, but in reality is tied to a large bathtub stopper in the bottom of the sea below. The stopper is pulled, and the flood waters recede, setting the ark dry and rocking atop a mountain peak. The ending, cut from all television prints, is signaled by the notes of the standard Paramount fanfare, indicating that the ship has landed atop the Paramount mountain! Many efforts have been made to restore this “lost” end title (including disputes over whether the film was produced in Technicolor or Polacolor), and the version embedded below is about as competent a job as any.

A Ham in a Role (Warner, The Goofy Gophers, 12/13/49 – Robert McKimson, dir.) – This cartoon seems to be over before it’s started. A dog (the same one previously seen iin “The Goofy Gophers” and “Two Gophers From Texas”, but in his third re-design under his third director) immediately gets a pie thrown in his face, and strums his lips – then a standard Looney Tunes “That’s All, Folks” card is pushed in front of the camera, with a short version of the Looney Tunes theme played by the orchestra. Is that it? Should we move on to the feature? No – we’re inside the Warner cartoon studio, as the camera pills back to reveal a small stagehand pushing the end card away on a large signboard, while the dog comes out of hiding from behind it. The dog is actually a Thespian, and bemoans his fate of working in cartoons as stooge for a cat and mouse. (Which ones? Sylvester had no regular mouse foil yet except for Hippity Hopper’s recurring role as a “giant mouse”. All the other cat and mouse teams were at rival studios. Is Warner doing some cross-licensing deals with the competition?) The dog’s been hit in the face with so many custard pies, they’re literally stuffed inside his ears. The dog vows to quit the business, and become a great Shakespearian actor (while still enduring cartoon humiliation, as the stagehand tows a long novelty-photo style screen of images of dancing chorines from the neck down in front of him, making the dog look like a kicking dancing girl, frame by frame). “Farewell to low comedy” says the dog, as he blindly drops off a ramp into a large tank of water. Underwater, he attempts to write his resignation to Mr. Warner, but only succeeds in clouding the tank with blue ink when his fountain pen spills.

The dog motors to his country home, where he shall study the works of the immortal bard. However, a few steps into his yard, he falls waist-deep into a gopher hole – one of dozens dotting the landscape. Determined not to let this upset his goals, the dog enters his home, disappears behind a dressing screen, and emerges in medieval garb, reading excerpts from a book of Hamlet, Scene 1, Act 3. As he begins to recite, he fails to immediately notice that there appear to be only two pages left to his book, the others having been hollowed through by gnawing teeth, to provide resting places on the opposite covers for the goofy gophers, snoring within the chewed pages. “To die, to sleep…” reads the dog, as he finally hears the snoring, and discovers the intruding pests. He tosses the book through a window and outside. As the book lands on the ground, the gophers awaken, addressing one another. “Temper, hasn’t he?” “Vile. Simply vile.” The gophers walk arm in arm back to the house, determined to take their own polite brand of retaliation.

The gophers’ schemes imaginatively weave violent or humiliating action into the Shakespearian quotes of the dog: A hotfoot as he recites about flames to which he must render up himself. A drink of a bathtub full of water from above while reciting a drinking toast from Romeo and Juliet. A dose of Limburger cheese upon his face while reciting “A rose by amy other name would smell…as sweet?” A skeleton dance in a costume of luminous paint within a darkened room during the “Alas, poor Eurich” speech. When one of the dog’s scenes calls for the wearing of a suit of armor, an elaborate gag is conceived by the gophers, as each drags a powerful magnet along the ceiling and floor surfaces on opposite ends of the room. The dog rebounds off ceilings, floor, and walls of the room like the ball in an arcade Pong machine gone crazy. Finally, the gophers answer the plea, “My kingdom for a horse”, by wheeling one in on a rolling platform, which delivers a swift kick to the dog’s rear, sailing him through the air and out the front door. “Parting is such sweet sorrow”, remarks the dog, as he crashes face first through the back wall of one of the Warner sound stages. Inside, the dog finds a camera crew ready, and remarks, “Ah, they have anticipated my return. The stage is all set.” The director calls for action, and the clapboard claps. “To be or not to…” begins the dog, only to receive the same old custard pie in the face, leaving him strumming his lips, “Be-be-be-be-be-be…”

• Watch it online by CLICKING HERE.

Comic Book Land (Terrytoons, 12/23/49, Mannie Davis, dir.). Titles on this episode are strange, original theatrical prints beginning with a head shot of Sourpuss, yet not followed by the series banner of his or any Terry regular series. Sourpuss had received star credit on at least two other prior releases, though this and at least one other could have as easily been billed in normal fashion as Gandy Goose cartoons – potentially denoting that Gandy’s career was on the wane as a star attraction. Yet the fact that Sourpuss’s name does not appear after his picture may denote even more, the cat perhaps yielding his name billing due to a brief cameo by a bigger Terry star within the film.

From the opening shot, we are well reminded of Terry’s other contributions to the screen world. A bedroom is seen, littered from wall to wall with unkempt and lopsided stacks of comic books. Some use generic and unknown titles, but many others feature the recognizable faces and names of Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle on their covers, and a few mention the name “Terry”. The camera reaches a double bunk bed, with Gandy sitting in the lower berth, avidly reading the latest comics adventures of Mighty Mouse (with name indicia of “Terrytoons Comics” in small print at the top). As Gandy breaks into laughter at the pages’ contents, the hand of Sourpuss, the occupant of the upper bunk, reaches into the shot to pull the comic away. Sourpuss as usual orders Gandy to stop reading and go to sleep. Gandy settles down, but Sourpuss secretly opens the pages above, and starts reading too. A whirl of illustrated comics pages, looking like actual print copy from the studio’s published magazines, whirl around in Sourpuss’s brain, and soon he too is lulled into dreamland, thinking about what he has just read. An extended dream sequence begins, in which the bunk bed and its occupants rise high into a sky of blue, penetrating a layer of white puffy clouds above. Gandy and Sourpuss emerge atop the cloud’s surface, to a land where homes are made from comic books resting on the cloud with covers open to form lean-to walls at 45-degree angles, and small stovepipe chimneys atop the pitched roofs of the covers to denote a lived-in look. Comic Book Land.

A knight in armor emerges at a full gallop from one magazine, and heralds to all that there will be a big show today. Gandy and Sourpuss attend, stepping along with others through the cover of one of the larger books, and emerging on an inside page in an upper comic frame, which serves as a theater box seat for a performance on a stage drawn upon the next page. The show is actually nothing more than a retracing of the dance sequence of Krakatoa Katie from “Mighty Mouse In Krakatoa”, eating up about a minute of footage with no new animation required. But suddenly, two huge feet and a torso so tall its owner’s face can’t be seen loom behind Katie on the stage. “The giant”, screams Katie. Everyone races from the theater book, as a Jack and the Beanstalk-style giant rips through. The giant stomps through the land, picking up comic book homes right and left, and carrying them all in a large clump in his arms to a huge castle on the other end of the cloud. Gandy and Sourpuss follow, into the castle, where they discover the giant reading from his prizes and letting the magazines run through his fingers, while to one side lies a treasure room full of mountains of other magazines he has stolen. “Comic books. They’re as good as gold”, remarks Gandy to his pal. (What a plug for the product placement!) The giant spots our heroes and gives chase. Gandy and Sourpuss disappear through a small hole between cobblestones in the castle floor. The giant attempts to reach his hands into the hole – but our heroes yank at his sleeves, removing his outer garments and leaving the giant kneeling in red flannel underwear. As the giant ponders how to get his clothes back, our heroes emerge from another gap in the floor, grab a lance from a suit of armor on the wall, and spear the giant with t, right in his underwear drop-seat. When the giant comes back from a leap into the stratosphere, Gandy and Sourpuss have rescued a wheelbarrow of comics, and are attempting to make a getaway. They exit the castle, triggering the drawbridge to raise behind them. The giant doesn’t even wait to lower it, instead smashing right through the bridge and jumping the moat. If you ever needed a real hero, now is the time. A large comic soars through the sky above, and its pages pop open, to reveal a rodent in tights, singing “Here I come to save the day!” You guessed it – a cameo for Mighty. Without much in the way of original action, Mighty begins pummeling the giant’s face, while Gandy and Sourpuss make good their escape, Gandy repeating that the comics are as good as gold…until the scene dissolves back to their bedroom, where Gandy is pushing Sourpuss on the bunk bed instead of on a wheelbarrow, crashing into the wall and destroying the bed. “You and your comic books”, snarls Sourpuss, beating Gandy up in a violent pillow fight, for the fade out.

How Green Is My Spinach (Paramount/Famous, Popeye, 1/27/50 – Seymour Kneitel, dir.). Another film that fakes you out right from the opening sequences into thinking you came in in the middle. As the first shot fades in, Bluto is already venting his usual violence upon Popeye, repeatedly stomping on his prone chest as the sailor lies upon the pavement of a city street. Popeye seems to be taking it in stride, laughing as if the full weight of Bluto only tickles. But just to be safe, Popeye reaches into his trusty hidden inner-shirt pocket – “Now for me spinach.” A quick nosh of his favorite green, and Popeye rights himself, socks Bluto a block down the street, and lands him into a street-sweeper’s ash can, complete with a busted flower pot atop his head. The scene fades out, as if we have already reached the end of the cartoon – but fades in again with another main title card, reading “Popeye in Spinach Sockeroo”. We fade into another battle, where Bluto is bouncing Popeye off a living room wall with the impct of repeated punches. Popeye isn’t feeling as good about this situation based on his expression, and again reaches for his spinach. Socko! Bluto is smacked backwards to the opposite wall, with a cuckoo clock landing on his head, and the bird popping out repeatedly from Bluto’s mouth. Fade out again, and another main title – “Popeye in Strictly From Spinach”. This time, we are on a ship. Bluto has Popeye tied from hand to foot, and stuffs him in a cannon. Popeye, however, is smiling again, once again fully confident. Bluto fires Popeye over the waves, but Popeye sucks his spinach can out of his bonds with his pipe, and lunches again. Reversing direction of flight, Popeye transforms into an artillery shell, collides with Bluto in a full-body upper-cut, and launches Bluto into space, where he hangs upon the tip of the moon in its crescent stage. Bluto begins weeping in self-pity, turning to address the audience. “This happens to me in every picture. Just as I’m about to murder that runt, he eats his spinach and finishes me off.” Suddenly, a new ray of hope brightens Bluto’s eyes, as a long-overdue conclusion crosses Bluto’s brain. “Spinach! No more spinach, and no more Popeye!”

How Bluto gets back from the moon is untold. We are transported by fade-in to a secret chemical laboratory, where Bluto labors over a hot boiling cauldron of industrial foundry-size. Pulling massive levers, he empties into the cauldron huge doses of arsenic, castor oil, and an unhealthy helping of the now-banned insecticide DDT, turning the cannister to reveal what the letters really stand for – Drop Dead Twice. Finally, one drop of Essence of Skunk, which results in a small nuclear mushroom cloud within the cauldron. A mixer descends to stir things up a bit – and rises with its mixer blades melted away. Bluto administers the crucial test to a sample spinach plant, spritzing it with a dose of spray from a flit can. (What’s the can made of to hold the solution, given that we’ve already seen the mixture eat right through metal?) The spinach plant coughs violently, uproots itself and keels over, its roots giving last kicks like the feet of a dying man. From this sobering scene, we dissolve to an aerial panning shot of Bluto in a pilot’s outfit, piloting a crop-duster plane with the jagged-teeth insignia of China’s “Flying Tiger” squadron, and the inscription, “The Spinach Killer”. One pass over a spinach farm, and the chemical does its work, converting the farm into a depression-era dust bowl.
Back in the city, unsuspecting Popeye walks happily along, as a truck loaded with spinach pulls alongside him, and gets a flat tire. In his good deed for the day, Popeye grabs a little bite from off the truck, acts as a human auto-jack, and changes the tire. But before the truck can pull away, Bluto’s plane passes overhead, emitting a small cloud of the toxic gas. The cloud develops a face, then sucks up the entire load of spinach, swallowing it, then disappears into non-existence. “Wow!”, reacts Popeye, just as a TV newscast airs on the screen of a display model in a local TV store. An announcer reports the disappearance of spinach crops all over the country, and warns that the world may soon be without spinach. Though this should be distressing news, a gang of kids watching the screen can’t resist shouting “Hooray!” But Popeye takes the seriousness of the situation to heart, remarking that it’s a good thing he always carries a spare can for emergency. Who is right behind him at this moment but Bluto, with the flit gun of anti-spinach juice. Bluto squirts a small cloud of it to float over Popeye’s can. The cloud transforms in shape to that of a hand-drill, boring a hole through the can lid and entering the tin. The can wriggles, sputters, then melts into a flattened puddle in Popeye’s hand. Popeye spots a nearby grocery store, which fortunately still advertises a special on spinach within. Popeye darts to the sales floor, where a tall display of spinach cans stands prominently. But another cloud of Bluto’s gas enters the store, enveloping the cans, which this time collapse into the aggregate form of a rickety “tin lizzie” auto, which weakly put-puts its way out of the scene. In desperation, Popeye eyes other products of the produce rack. Broccoli – it might be as good as spinach! Or so Popeye hopes, as, after a mouthful, Popeye’s arm muscle sags from his arm instead of rising. Bluto, on the other hand, displays a bulging arm muscle – which develops its own miniature arm, flexing its own second arm muscle.

Popeye grabs up everything else in the aisle – carrots, cabbage, celery, and potatoes, sampling all. But one sock at Bluto’s extended jaw folds Popeye’s arm into accordion pleats. Bluto places a foot ipon Popeye’s own, and begins beating him like a punching bag. An announcer’s voice (Jackson Beck) begins to chime in, asking the audience how much of this Popeye can take, then providing descriptions as Bluto changes tactics, sweeping the floor with Popeye, then “raining blows” upon him, which fall from the air like so many hailstones. Bluto throws everything he’s got at Popeye – and the kitchen sink, with a crash on Popeye’s head. “After all these tears, can this be the end of Popeye? Can’t anybody help him? IS THERE A CAN OF SPINACH IN THE HOUSE?”. yells the announcer. The camera has pulled back from the screen, displaying a live-action theater audience (in black and white), exchanging worried and questioning glances between themselves. A small boy in a middle row sits with a grocery bag in hand, almost in tears – then brightens, as he opens and reaches into his bag, remembering an item he picked ip from the store – a can of spinach, just Popeye’s brand. Climbing up on his seat, the boy calls out to “uncle Popeye”, and is seen in silhouette throwing the can toward the screen. Popeye catches it, eats, and divides into five phantoms of himself, all of which sock Bluto with combined strength. Bluto is knocked out of the store, out of the city, and onto a farm, where Popeye uses him as a beast of burden, harnessing to his back a mechanical spinach seeder, which with every dropped seed, sprouts a new spinach plant, growing spinach instantly from its leaves, in clumps of two, already canned and labeled for market!

The idea of attacking the world’s spinach crop would cross Bluto’s mind once more, in the later Halas and Bachelor TV episode, “The Billionaire”, where Bluto would use a hefty monetary gift obtained from Popeye to plow the world’s spinach crop under. Popeye is ultimately saved when his own money turns out to be printed with green spinach ink. Talk about eating rich.

Goofy Goofy Gander (Paramount/Famous, Little Audrey, 8/18/50 – Bill Tytla, dir.) follows suit to Terrytoons above in telling another tale of one who too eagerly follows the comics. Little Audrey, bored with the school assignment to memorize and recite Mother Goose rhymes, instead conceals hidden between the pages of her grade school primer the latest issue of “Phoney Funnies”, a comic book featuring Pin Head and Bird Brain, a pair of would-be crooks. Pin Head calls himself a “sharpie”, with a brow and chin that come to a razor point. Bird Brain is a “stooge” type, with a hairdo resembling a bird’s nest, and a hole in the side of his cranium, providing a bird-house entrance for an actual bird that lives inside his skull. As Audrey reads of their exploits in a failed attempt upon the gold at Fort Knox, the teacher calls on Audrey to recite. Thoughtlessly picking up from the last line of dialogue of the comic, Audrey assumes a gun moll demeanor, and tells the teacher, “I ain’t talkin’, see?” The kids roar with laughter, while Audrey is sent to the dunce’s corner to study her nursery rhymes, and, totally bored, falls asleep. As Audrey dozes, the book in her hands grows in size, and out of its pages flies a lovely, “modern” Mother Goose, strongly resembling the teacher. The Goose provides aerial transportation for Audrey into the world of Mother Goose, as Mother Goose explains that those in her land are quite alive and hep to the jive, and that what Audrey sees will open her eyes. Little Boy Blue is fast asleep – on the stage at the “Haystack Club” night spot, but when he awakes blows a bebop wail on his trumpet, while two sheep and a cow provide vocal accompaniment in the style of your choice of current “sister” acts making the circuits. In a rather mature gag for a grade schooler, Mary’s little “lamb” turns out to be a human white-haired sugar daddy – “and everywhere that Mary went, she’d fleece him for his dough”, using her crook cane to steer him into a jewelry shop. Just the kind of role model every mother wants to instill into their juvenile daughters! Little Tommy Tucker sings for his supper – although his day job is street sweeper. However, his face and build are no strangers to the audience, as he is so pencil thin, he is eclipsed by the broom, and emerges as a caricature of Frank Sinatra. He breaks into song with a chorus of “Let’s Get Lost” (right out of “Shape Ahoy”). Audrey and Mother Goose both swoon and faint atop the goose, who flies resolutely onward, toward a fairgrounds atop a tall mountain.

At such grounds, we discover that Audrey is not the only newcomer to this land. From behind a pole emerge, now in fully animated form, comic book refugees Pin Head and Bird Brain, who commit their first crime in the realm by swiping a penny from a tiny pig, and depositing in in a streetcar conductor’s change machine worn on a belt arounf Pin Head’s waist, into a compartment marked “Penny Larceny”. But there is bigger game afoot, as they observe the jackpot of jackpots – a public display of skill by the Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs. Here we have yet another lift from the past, with a reuse of set and animation from previous Noveltoon, “Cilly Goose”, as the goose lays egg after egg to a conga-beat syncopation of the Chicken Reel. Audrey has to put on sunglasses to get close enough to observe the glitter of the egg pile. Pin Head and Bird Brain pull out a pair of “gats”, and announce a “stick-up”. Audrey instantly recognizes them, and comments that they don’t belong in here. The crooks hijack a long sedan, placing the eggs in the rear, and their source, the goose, in the rear seat with Bird Brain to hold her hostage, then careen down a spiral mountain road to make a getaway (taking a brief detour through Humpty Dumpty’s wall, where the famous egg does not crack, as he remarks in Edward G. Robinson’s voice and face that he’s “hard-boiled”). Audrey races to the rescue, borrowing Mother Goose’s flying goose, and Boy Blue’s horn. She swoops in closer and closer to the crooks’ car. The crooks fire a spray of bullets in Audrey’s direction (not having the “bird-brains” to shoot the goose down and take out the pilot at the same time). The bird in Bird-Brain’s head even adds to the fire, by pitching eggs from its nest. Audrey twists Boy Blue’s horn into a U-shape, catching the bullets in the bell of the horn, then curving them back at the crooks. The villains stop shooting, and Audrey leaps off the goose’s neck into the car, wrestling with the crooks to make an arrest. (By the way, who’s steering to keep the car on the road?) Exit our dream sequence, to find Audrey on the floor in the classroom corner, wrestling the legs of the dunce stool. Teacher is astonished, but Audrey has turned over a new leaf, with a new-found respect for Mother Goose, as up to date after all. From out of Audrey’s hair pops Bird Brain’s bird, declaring, “She’s hep to the jive. Mother Goose is sure alive.” Audrey of course breaks into her trademark laugh at this interjection, for the iris out.

I had overlooked a Bugs Bunny title chronologically, then realized it sort of fit with a later episode within the present chronology as almost two of a kind – so we’ll discuss both films together. First, A Hare Grows In Manhattan (Warer, Bugs Bunny, 3/22/47. I. (Friz) Freleng, dir.). Show Biz reporter Lola Beverly takes us on a visit to the Hollywood movie stars colony. Today, we are to visit a newcomer to film stardom – Bugs. His estate features swimming pool, fine statuary, formal gardens, and home sweet home – no house, just a rabbit hole outside of which rests delivery of the morning paper and a fresh bottle of Grade A Carrot Juice. Lola calls “yoo hoo” to Bugs, who appears with sleepy eyes, scratching himself in a nightshirt, yawning until he realizes, “Oh, my goodness. The press.” Bugs quickly zips back into his hole, then reappears with feigned poise, in the appropriate garb of luxurious robe, dark sunglasses, and beret, ready for his interview. “So, eh, what’s cookin’, Lolly?”, he asks formally. The rest of the film covers Bugs’s telling the story of his alleged childhood and youth, differing markedly from the tale told in a subsequent cartoon discussed below. In this one, Bugs grows up in the streets of Manhattan, tap-dancing his way along while singing “The Daughter of Rosie O’Grady”, but is treated as a sissy by a gang of dogs, headed by a burly bulldog in a derby and sweater who would become the model for “Spike” or “Alf” (adding a British accent) in later Freleng productions such as “Dr. Jerkyl’s Hyde”. Bugs eventually gives the dogs their share of lumps, then sends them on their way over the Brooklyn Bridge, when he tries to use a hardbound book from a book rack in self-defense while cornered in a blind alley. The book title read by the dogs? “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.”

What’s Up Doc? (Warner, Bugs Bunny, 6/17/50 – Robert McKimson, dir.), begins in almost the same fashion as its predecessor. To the strains of “Hooray For Hollywood”, we focus in on a country club pool, where Bugs lounges in a chair under an umbrella. The phone rings on a nearby table, and Bugs answers, “Start talkin’. It’s your nickel.” It is the Disassociated Press, seeking what the public has been clamoring for – Bugs’s life story. “I can tell it to ya right over the phone”, says Bugs. “First, I was born, which goes without sayin’” Then Bugs relates how he noticed he was different from the other kids in the delivery room – a rabbit in a human world. Junior Bugs excels at playing classical works on a toy piano, and is a class favorite in recitals at dancing school. He feels ready for the big time, and reviews a room full of scripts for Broadway shows in his study (turning down the script for “Life With Father” as something that will “never be a hit”). He takes on roles in “Girl of the Golden Vest”, “Wearing of the Grin”, and “Rosie’s Cheeks” – all identical, as a junior member of an otherwise human chorus line, where he performs only four lines of song: “Oh, we’re the boys of the chorus. We hop you like our show. We know you’re rootin’ for us, but now we have to go.” A star gets sick, and Bugs is asked to perfom a tap dance and juggling act – resulting in a silence so complete, you can hear the crickets chirp. Back to the chorus. But Bugs won’t have it, deciding to quit show business until he finds the right part.

He spends most of the season on a park bench with other out-of-work performers – caricatures of Al Jolson, Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor, and Bing Crosby. Along comes Elmer Fudd, noted Broadway star, on a park stroll. All the others try to put on their best signature performances before the passing Elmer, but Fudd just waves them off as not needed – then spies Bugs. “Bugs Bunny! Why are you hanging around with these guys? They’ll never amount to anything.” Elmer, beside himself with excitement, offers Bugs equal billing as partner in his act. Bugs embarks on a strenuous circuit of stage appearances, but finds himself the stooge to Elmer, taking only straight-man lines, and getting hit with pies and squirts from seltzer bottles. Bugs decides the act needs a change, and reverses the action during the next performance, stealing Elmer’s lines, and giving him the pie and seltzer in the face. Elmer reappears from the wings, carrying a shotgun. For the first time, Bugs nervously asks, “Eh, what’s up doc?” The audience eats it up, and applauds. Bugs whispers to Elmer that he thinks they’ve stumbled onto something, and Bugs tries it again. Another round of applause, and Bugs and Elmer take their bows, and dace off stage. Offers pour in, and Bugs and Elmer go to Hollywood and Warner Brothers for their screen test, performing a vocal production number of Bugs’s theme tune of the same title. The scene returns to the country club, where Bugs tells the reporter that he is scheduled to shoot his first picture written especially from him today, and is due on the set. The scene dissolves to a sound stage, where forty or so dancers line the sides of a golden staircase, as the camera pans up to a stage and curtain at the top of the stairs, with the initials “BB” on the curtain fabric. The curtains part – and we see the identical animation of Bugs dancing with three chorus boys from before – except that Bugs’s face looks more dour than ever about the whole thing.

A disagreement in research source chronology dates leads me to review at this time King Tut’s Tomb (Terrytoons/Fox, Heckle and Jeckle, 9/29/50 – Mannie Davis, dir.) – so please do not blog about the intervening Herman the Mouse cartoon Saved By the Bell, which will have to be discussed next week. Oddly, the name of John Foster does not show up as either writer or director in the credits, because this film has all the earmarks of an updated remake of his frequent surreal earlier works for Van Beuren and the like, such as Waffles and Don’s Gypped in Egypt. The same old story – Heckle and Heckle take the earlier duo’s place, on an expedition to exploit the wealth hidden in King Tut’s Tomb. Did we say hidden? Not very. Signs denote the location clearly among the desert pyramids, including additional signs stating “No digging” and “Do not disturb the Mummies…Or the Daddies.” Finally, a large marble “X” upon the sand denotes the entrance to the underground vaults. The magpies make an entrance for their expedition via flying carpet, and zero in on the X. Heckle places a spike directly in the center of the X, and Jeckle acts as a living jack-hammer, striking repeated blows upon the spike head with his beak. The racket awakens the sculpted Sphinx, who rises from his usual place of rest, darting to a secret panel in the side of one of the pyramids, and entering it to reach a telephone hidden inside. He dials up the ghost of King Tut, and reports that there’s a couple of magpies pecking on the King’s tomb. The voice of Tut is heard, assuring “Sphinxie” that “We’ll take care of them.”

Outside, the birds are being noticed by others. A large sort of Egyptian asp-creature happens by, and utters a disapproving “Tsk tsk.” A ghost of a mummy rises from the ground, stating, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you”, then descends into the ground again. Jeckle wonders if they’re doing the right thing, but Heckle advises him to “Pay no attention to those hecklers.” (Well, his name is Heckle. I guess he should know best.) Without warning, the marble X splits into four sections, opening a hole under the magpies in the middle, and dropping them down a chute and right into the central hall of the underground tomb. Spotting a large stone door, with combination lock (what technology these Egyptians had!), Heckle exclaims, “What luck! The royal vault.” Heckle goes to work on the combination dial, and hears a tumbler click. As the door begins to creak open, Jeckle cries, “Look out!” The two birds leap to hide in some nearby urns, as an Avery-influenced parade of wonders emerges from the door. A marching band of mummies playing trombones, and a bass drum played by an entirely invisible musician. A camel, much like the one in Avery’s “Half-Pint Pygmy”, with 10 humps, harem pants on his hind legs, and swinging a drum major’s baton with his tail. A mummy ringing a bell and pedaling a Good Humor ice cream bicycle. 5 sarcophaguses (sarcophagi?) floating through the air, the last of which opens to reveal a mummy-version of Harpo Marx playing the cymbals! Weird, huh? After the parade passes, the magpies peer in the door, and find something even more curious. An Egyptian model of a 1950’s-style neon-bedecked juke box. One of the magpies starts the machine up, and an Egyptian-flavored tune plays. This allows for some extended reuse of stock animation from Gandy and Sourpuss’s “Somewhere in Egypt”, featuring what is likely Carlo Vinci animation of the ghosts of cat harem dancers, originally intended to be dancing partners for Sourpuss – but in this case, Jeckle will do. Jeckle takes a leap to embrace one of the dancers, who first disappears, then reappears out of reach. When Jeckle tries again, the dancer morphs into the Frankenstein monster! (An aggravating continuity cut appears here in every print I’ve seen, suggesting that CBS thought some gag involving the monster to be too horrific. Does anyone know what occurred in the missing scene?)

When we next find our magpies, they are sprawled on the floor, and Jeckle wishes they were out of there. Heckle offers reassurance: “Don’t worry, chum. This is only a cartoon.’ The mummy ghost seen in the opening sequences rises from the floor once again, to offer his own viewpoint: “That’s what YOU think.” (So let’s ponder this a bit. We’ve established from previous cartoons that cartoon magpies can do anything they think of. So if they think it is a cartoon, does reality become a cartoon? Or is their whole belief that they can do what they think a fallacy, as they are not cartoon characters, but real magpies after all?) Straight out of “Gypped in Egypt” comes a skeleton in a fire hat, riding a chariot to the sounds of sirens and bells. He collides with the magpies, dumping a bucket of water from the chariot on Jeckle’s head, and briefly leaving his own skull over Heckle’s head to frighten Jeckle. The skeleton’s body quickly returns to claim its lost topper, restoring things briefly to normal. Finally, the magpies spy a large treasure chest, which they assume must house the royal jewels. “If we only had a skeleton key”, remarks Heckle upon seeing the chest’s lock. The skeleton fireman returns, passing such a key to Heckle. The key is turned, the lock clicks, and the chest lid pops open – for the only mistimed scene of the film, in which the revelation of the chest’s contents happens altogether too suddenly. “TERMITES!”, shout the magpies. No explanation is offered for why the magpies instantly feel this is so frightening. We’ve not even seen a demonstration of the insects’ powers, and the birds are, after all, standing on a stone floor – so why are they afraid? It does turn out, however, that the insects appear to possess powers beyond those of mortal mites. The magpies dive into urns for safety, but the urns, despite being ceramic, are devoured by the mites. The birds ascend a spiral staircase of stone steps – but the bugs devour the stone stairs right behind them. The birds burst out from the marble X to the desert surface, hop on their flying carpet, and soar into the air empty-handed, yet still shake each other’s hand at having at least escaped. But they have passengers. The sound of a grinding buzzsaw is heard, as their carpet is eaten out from under them – then, their feathers likewise disappear. H&J blush with embarrassment at being seen by the audience in their bare skins. Yet, in a defiance of aerodynamics first seen in their earlier cartoon “Flying South”, the two featherless birds are still able to beat a hasty retreat into the sky on bared wings, for the fade out.

Further into the ‘50’s, next.