A few more this week from Hanna-Barbera, then more bullfighting action from UPA, Terrytoons, the Disney Afternoon, and even from Japan.

Smurf Me No Flowers (The Smurfs, 11/27/82). Lazy Smurf, true to his name, loves to spend the day performing no work, and snoozing away. Oddly, he’s experiencing a problem he’s never faced before – inability to doze off, no matter what position, and no matter where he tries to sleep. Experimenting with new sleeping locales in the underbrush of Smurfette’s garden, inside Baker Smurf’s cupboards, and even down the village well, is driving the other Smurf’s crazy with fright at discovering his wide-awake eyes in the darkness. Brainy Smurf suggests Lazy see Papa Smurf for some sort of magical cure. But even Papa Smurf claims to have nothing for Lazy in his bag of tricks. The best cure he knows for sleeplessness is good old fashioned exercise. Exercise? Not a permissible word in Lazy’s vocabulary. Lazy leaves Papa Smurf’s home with a feeling of hopelessness, just as Vanity Smurf bursts in, panicking at the condition of a withering plant in a pot, and hoping that the wrinkles in the plant’s leaves aren’t catching. Papa tells him to leave the plant with him to see if there’s anything he can do. Meanwhile, Lazy breaks the news to Brainy outside that Papa had no magical solution. Brainy is unconvinced that these words could have come from Papa, and advances to Papa’s door to speak to their leader himself. But before entering the doorway, he overhears the voice of Papa Smurf, remarking “If only he’d come to me sooner. It looks like this is the end. I’d say two more days, at the most.” Of course, he is talking to himself about the plant. Brainy, however, assumes the worst – that Lazy is not long for this Smurf.

Brainy spreads news of the tragedy to everyone except Lazy and Papa Smurf. The Smurfs plan to make Lazy’s last days as happy as possible, starting by throwing him a going-away party – hopefully without letting him know he is going away. All hope for secrecy dies quickly, when a Smurf’s ode to Lazy causes him and others to break down in tears, and Clumsy Smurf blurts out the bad news, amplified by Brainy repeating similar phrases in trying to shut him up. Lazy gets it, and his first instinct is to retreat into solitude. His continuing inability to sleep results in a change of plans. He resolves to use his last two days wisely – by doing great things he was always too tired to do. Ride roaring rapids. Conquer the highest mountain. And tame a fierce wild beast. The other Smurfs tag along in hopes of dissuading him, or at least keeping his numbered days from dwindling in number prematurely. Lazy accomplishes the first two tasks, while his friends take the lumps in a wrecked canoe and caught in a rolling snowball. As for the beast, Lazy selects a menacing-looking bull in a cow pasture. The Smurfs get an idea to prevent another disaster, and divert Lazy for a few moments with the suggestion that he needs a few more slices of Baker’s cake to strengthen himself before taking on his foe. In the meanwhile, the Smurfs perform a switcheroo, doctoring and dolling up a cow to serve as the bull’s substitute. Lazy returns, carrying a large red autumn leaf to serve as a cape. He gets some slow responsive action by waving it at the cow, and the cow passes in plodding, non-threatening manner, while Smurfs seated on the cowpasture fence shout “Ole”. Lazy takes bows between passes to his public. The noise of the event is heard by Papa Smurf, who has remained for the day inside his home, tending to the sick plant, and achieving wonders that seem to ensure the plant’s survival. Carrying the plant along to deliver to Vanity, Papa finds the village deserted, and follows the sounds of the cheers to the cowpasture. Of course, the misunderstanding is quickly cleared up, to everyone’s surprise – particularly Lazy, who stammers, “Then what am I battling this fierce beast for?” Lazy turns to run, but the other Smurfs laugh and tell him of the substitution they made. However, a snort of hot breath above their heads tells them the danger isn’t over – the real bull has returned. The Smurfs scatter, every Smurf for themself, as the bull charges, but is stopped by a smack of his head on the pasture fence. By the time they reach the village, Lazy is found – fast asleep. Papa remarks that he told him some good exercise would cure his problem. However, exercise has also been a sure cure for everyone else’s ability to doze, too, and Papa finds the village’s entire population exhausted in the square and snoring everywhere. Papa smiles, and turns to Vanity’s plant, remarking, “Well, little friend, it looks like you and I eat alone tonight.”

Just Rambling Along (from “The Tom and Jerry Kids Show”, 10/31/92) – Mice have large families. (For example, witness, all those cousins of Herman the Mouse we knew for years at Famous.) We’ve been introduced to Jerry the Mouse’s cousins and uncles since 1951. His family further expanded in the Tom and Jerry Kids Show with the introduction of Slowpoke Antonio – a character who seemed to descend (or steal) in equal parts from Jerry’s Uncle Pecos (“Pecos Pest”), and Speedy Gonzales’s cousin Slowpoke Rodriguez (“Mexicali Shmoes”/“Mexican Boarders”). What, cross-pollination between the products of two rival studios? Next thing you know, some genealogist will find a direct bloodline link between Jerry and Pixie and Dixie!

Slowpoke differed primarily from his namesake at Warner Brothers by speaking in a Western twang, singing in off-key country yodeling style, and being an expert in fancy lariat work in the rodeo. His connection to Uncle Pecos became painfully evident in his first appearance in the series, where he completely lifts Pecos’s reach-out-of-the-TV ending to hogtie Tom. This time, Slowpoke is given a starring cartoon of his own, and for reasons unknown, has traveled to sunny Spain, believing there is a rodeo playing locally in which he wants to enter the bulldogging events. Of course, he erroneously enters the local bull ring through the matadors’ entrance. Just before reaching the ring, he encounters a Senorita and her Mamacita mouse in a box seat located within a flower pot. The Senorita asks if he is the matador who will fight the bull. Slowpoke claims he doesn’t know what this “matador” stuff is (a writing inconsistency, as, at a later point of the film, he utters verbal challenges of “Ole” and “Toro”, and adds “That’s matador talk”), but boasts that he can throw any bull in this here parts. The snorting breath of a bull’s muzzle suddenly blasts at him, as the bull has overheard the insulting claims of the little “turista”, and denies that he can be thrown. Slowpoke puts a stop to the “rude interruption”, by plugging the bull’s nostrils with two corks, and stating that he doesn’t like being in a draft. As Slowpoke enters the ring, the bull gallops toward him at full speed. Slowpoke grabs onto the bull’s nose ring, and attempts to stop him (though in fact being pushed several times across the arena), claiming this ain’t no way to start a rodeo. Slowpoke pulls out his lariat, and with a great time of only a couple of seconds, has the bull on his back and hogtied at the hooves. Slowpoke tells the cantankerous bovine to get back to his pen and not come out until it’s his turn.

The bull makes an ungraceful exit bound in rope, but somehow breaks loose and re-emerges, ready for another charge. Slowpoke is butted into the air, landing on the bull’s back. This suits Slowpoke fine, as he always loves the bucking bronco event. He performs a wild ride, staying upon the bull bareback. Then, gag material begins to get highly derivative of several past cartoons. One gag has Slowpoke opening the bull’s mouth, to play his teeth like a piano keyboard (Tex Avery’s “Bad Luck Blackie”). Slowpoke produces a branding iron, and, as the bull hides behind a wooden barrier, brands him right through the wood (derived from Pixie and Dixie’s “Cousin Tex”). A tug on a triple-looped lariat around the bull turns the bull into a link of sausages (“Popalong Popeye”). Slowpoke finally adapts to toreador cape, and plants an anvil behind it (“Bully For Bugs”, derivative of “The Grey-Hounded Hare”). And the bull can’t stand Slowpoke’s singing (“El Kabong Strikes Again”). Writers (or shall we call them “researchers”?) must have been really hoping the viewing kids had never seen other cartoons before to hope to get away with this many gag thefts unnoticed. Yet, in fairness, the animation is of reasonably high quality, commensurate with the obviously larger budgets H-B was able to obtain for this show, pacing is energetic and more in tune with the classic theatrical days, and, if you can ignore the fact that you’ve seen almost all of it before, it doesn’t play badly. Slowpoke ends the film serenading the Senorita, who acknowledges that she thinks he’s a great bullfighter – if only she could say the same for his singing.

• No online prints available of “Just Rambling Along”. If you find one, let us know.

A late entry nominally-billed as Hanna-Barbera product by Cartoon Network was Johnny Bravo’s Did You See a Bull Run By Here? (7/28/97). It’s a bit of a weak finish to the H-B bullfighting legacy, without much of a plotline. While at the Pamplona running of the bulls trying to pick up Senoritas, Johnny winds up in the way, has his shirt snagged by a charging bull, and is dragged into the bull ring. He still tries to put the make upon a shapely American girl in the stands, but someone hands him a cape, saying he is going to need it standing in the ring. Johnny doesn’t know what it’s for, and throws it over his shoulder, playing cavalier and spouting poetry to the lady in improvised Shakespeare fashion. He is tapped on the shoulder by the hoof of the bull, who says its nothing personal, and agrees that violence isn’t the answer, yet knows the rules. Johnny’s got the cape, so they gotta fight. Johnny gets butted into the air three different times (once as himself, once playing matador, and once attacking the bull with kung fu moves. All his flights into the air result in crashing into the dust below, leaving three identical craters stretched end to end at arms-length. Johnny says it’s getting personal. The bull meanwhile lounges between rounds on a lawn chair with a martini, gets a manicure, and flirts with the American girl, trying to tell her a funny joke. Someone passes the bull a phone in the middle of his flirtation. “Talk to me”, he grunts. A voice says, “Look behind you.” It is Johnny, wearing an oversize red boxing glove. With one punch, he K.O.’s the bull. The American girl leaps into the ring, checking on the bull’s condition, and tells Johnny, “Well, I hope you’re happy.” It seems losing bulls in these parts are eaten by the crowd, and their hooves turned into ash trays. As the folks in the stands raise their knives and forks, and the dazed bull sings a chorus of “Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey”, Johnny provides a distraction, by simply pointing to the sky and stating, “Look up there.” While the crowd looks, the girl drives into the arena with a convertible, and she, Johnny and the bull drive away, leaving the crowd asking whether they should order Chinese. The girl turns out to be a Hollywood producer, and signs up the bull for a movie contract, but only on the bull’s condition that Johnny also be signed as his comedy partner. Johnny ends the cartoon in a successful career as the bull’s stooge, remarking to the camera that a guy’s gotta make a living.

• A flipped version of “Did You See a Bull Run By Here?” is on a block of Johnny Bravo cartoons on Dailymotion, beginning at 1:14:23.

Turning back the clock again to the 1950’s, UPA’s The Boing Boing Show included a bullfighting episode entitled The Matador and the Troubadour (circa 1956?). Only a foreign-language print without subtitles is currently available online, so I can only give details beyond the visuals from memory of a prior screening recorded on VHS which I cannot readily lay hands upon. It tells a simple tale of a village where the local matador reigns supreme in the eyes of the villagers – and especially, the ladies – in popularity, while a small, lonely troubadour strums his guitar alone in the streets, virtually unnoticed (except by a rather plain and homely village girl, who is the only one charmed by his plaintiff ballads). The troubadour believes he has all the moves and grace to match the matador, and indeed is shown in a side-by-side performance behind the matador’s back, matching his every move in miniature. Thus, the troubadour begins training in secret to learn all the passes of the matador, with the local girl assisting by charging at him with a set of bull horns attached to the head of a wheelbarrow. The film attempts to be slightly educational, naming in Spanish several of the passes he perfects, but ending with something that sounds like “El Paseo Ridiculoso” – a move that gets the Troubadour completely wrapped up from head to toe within his own cape.

The day finally comes when the Troubadour presents himself for a tryout at the bull ring. The Matador, in attendance at one side of the arena, accompanied by a beautiful Senorita, scoffs at the amateur upstart, as does his girl. The bull they release is so mean, he wears a patch over one eye like a pirate. The Troubadour makes a gallant try, but repeatedly gets mowed down by the bull. Even the bull starts to take pity on him as he lays in the dust of the arena, propping him up with his muzzle so that the Troubadour can continue the fight. Finally, the Troubadour repeats his “Paseo Ridiculoso”, swishing his cape repeatedly from one side of the bull to the other, and winds the bull up in fabric, using the cape to hogtie him upside down as if in a rodeo. Cheers go up from the crowd. The matador in the stands utters a half-hearted “Ole”, but is surprised when his Senorita abandons him, and appears in the ring, offering her hand to the Troubadour for a kiss. The Troubadour is about to deliver the kiss, but then has second thoughts. If this girl will so easily dump the matador, would she not someday possibly do the same to him? Is she worth it? The Troubadour concludes, no – and so, without delivering the kiss, releases her hand, bows to her respectfully, and exits the arena. Where does he go? Back into the village, to sit next to the plain and homely girl, who smiles, offers him his old guitar which she has saved, and faithfully sits quietly with him, to listen entranced to his melodies. True beauty runs farther within than skin deep.

• A German-language print of “The Matador and the Troubadour”, at least showing-off the visuals and the music, can be found on Youtube titled “Zu Gast bei Paulchens Trickverwandten – Der kleine Troubadour” on the channel of Joey Bridgehouse at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu2wnezvjSM

A whole article has been devoted by the columns of Dr. Toon on this site to the story and history of Toei Animation’s feature-length Saiyuuki, or Alakazam the Great (8/14/60) (as known to American audiences), and its checkered editing and translation in attempt to make its material palatable to the U.S. market. I thus won’t go into its sometimes unfathomable plot about a magical monkey king, his fall from grace by challenging the gods, and his lengthy pilgrimage with a ragtag band of friends to achieve humility. However, it is odd that it has been forgotten by the readership here, as its climactic sequence develops into a full-blown bullfight with an evil bull-demon who resorts to his roots, transforming into a humongous and pure-animal version of the bovine beast for a savage showdown with Alakazam. Alakazam himself produces a red cape, and adds something no other animated depictions of the sport have included – the decorated banderillas, spear-like poles, used to puncture the bull’s shoulder muscles and weaken him. To make things a little more magical, the battle occurs in mid-air, both characters defying gravity (Alakazam doing so by taking up his matador positions while standing atop a floating cloud, while the bull needs no cloud to gallop airborne at will), with both of them hovering over a volcanic lava pit. The bull action is rather traditional to the moves of the ring, with graceful passes, and multiple spears placed into the bull’s back. (It’s hard to tell if the animation shows primarily red paper streamers upon the spears, or if there is some suggestion of bloodletting from the wounds.) It seems unclear what is the fatal blow or cause that finally sends the bull tumbling from the sky into the lava pit. Strangely, one of Alakazam’s companions, a large pig in a kimono who provides most of the comic relief, is in possession of a magic fan which can freeze things in its path. He chooses at this moment to wave the fan to stop the lava flow, freezing the lava and the mountain peak in ice. So we may never really know if the bull demon burned to a crisp in the volcanic molten rock, or merely was placed into a deep freeze.

The full feature of “Alakazam the Great” is on You Tube. Below is an 11-minute highlight reel including the bullfight: