Drinks on the house, Tex Avery and Muppet style
Mad Dog pulls a Droopy on Ace Hart on Dog City
Tex Avery (1908-1980) was an animator and cartoon director known for his classic theatrical shorts (first Looney Tunes and then at MGM). His trademarks included anvils falling from the sky, dryly stated signs ("Pretty Darn Long, Isn't It?"), visual puns, and especially characters displaying wild, exaggerated physical takes to show shock or excitement. His 1940 short A Wild Hare is considered to be the formal debut of Bugs Bunny (following earlier prototypes), while Porky's Duck Hunt (1937) introduced Daffy Duck, who began as a typical Avery zany.
With his first MGM short in 1942, Avery's cartoons became faster and wilder, with more overt sex appeal as typified by his Little Red Riding Hood parody Red Hot Riding Hood (1943), with Red as a shapely nightclub singer pursued by the tuxedo clad Wolf. His animation unit, along with that of Hanna-Barbera, made up the bulk of the studio's cartoon output through 1957. While Avery focused on pacing and gags over characterization, his best known character was the usually deadpan Droopy, who in his debut Dumb-Hounded (1943) and two later shorts has the uncanny knack of following the Wolf to the ends of the earth and constantly appearing when least expected.
Avery moved to Walter Lantz briefly in the 1950s, for four shorts (including two Chilly Willy outings) and then worked steadily in TV commercials such as Raid spots. When his studio closed, Avery reunited with Hanna-Barbera, directing and working in story on lower-budgeted, limited animation fare such as The Flintstones Comedy Show, Casper's First Christmas, and The Kwicky Koala Show (with a Droopy-style hero).
References[]
- Avery's 1945 short The Shooting of Dan McGoo has the Wolf tell a saloon crowd that drinks are on the house. Everyone rushes to the roof, for literal drinks on the house. The same gag was used in The Muppet Movie, although the El Sleezo Cafe crowd were deprived of actual drinks.
- Another sight gag in The Muppet Movie, the literal Fork in the Road, was used by Avery in Wild and Woolfy (1945).
- Ace Hart frantically tries to escape a devoted Mad Dog in the second season Dog City episode "Much Ado About Mad Dog." In Droopy fashion, Mad Dog shows up every time, including driving the taxi he climbs into (a direct lift from 1946's Northwest Hounded Police) and only their eyes appearing in a dark cramped space (Dumb-Hounded).
- Rozzie pulls the same thing on Baby Fozzie in the revived Muppet Babies episode "The Copy Cub." Fozzie even paraphrases the Wolf's line from Northwest Hounded Police, "He'll never find me here."
Connections[]
- Daws Butler voiced the city wolf in Little Rural Riding Hood (1949), the Southern wolf in The Three Little Pups (1953) and Billy Boy (1954), and others