Wednesday 21 December 2011

75. Buddy and Towser (1934)

Warner cartoon no. 74.
Release date: February 24, 1934.
Series: Looney Tunes.
Supervision: Friz Freleng.
Producer: Leon Schlesinger.
Cast: Jack Carr (Buddy).
Animation: Jack King and Bob McKimson.
Musical Score: Norman Spencer.

Our cartoon starts with a rather snowy night at Buddy's house, and Buddy is standing at his front hall looking at his pictures of his chickens as a reminder for him to whistle for his dog, Towser. Wait a minute, Buddy now has a different dog? Earleir he had some terrier named Happy - what happened to him? Did Buddy put him to sleep? Did he run away, was he sold to another answer - so many questions pop to my head which never has beenr revealed.

So, Buddy calls for Towser, and Towser arrives, Buddy talks "Now you keep an eye out on those chickens tonight," in which Towser replies with a bark as though he will do it. Towser runs out of the door in which Buddy closes it. He runs into his bouncy bed to turn off the light. I hope that Buddy isn't acting all boastful by being in his warm bed, so that Towser will have to sleep in the cold shack looking after Buddy's chickens. For some very strange reason, Buddy turns on a shower spout in which the candle goes out. Why would anyone ever use a spout to put out the --- oh never mind, so Buddy goes to sleep.

Once all the lights are out, there is a chicken inside the hut that puts a milk bottle out for the milkman to come out - I guess that it's funny as though the milkman has to collect chicken's milk, but since when do chickens even drink milk? Inside the hut, we see many chickens inside the hut sleeping, sleeping, sleeeeping, zzzzz. One of the gags shown I guess is a chicken that is snoring in front of a sleeping chicken, he can feel the coldness from his breath and then puts on a jacket.

Another gag that is shown was a hen with her chicks, and one of the chicks then chirps to take her youngest child to the toilet. She wakes up one of the older chicks to take its sibling to use the toilet, but the black chick refuses. The impatient chick then takes him along, waits until about 3 seconds later - the chick has done a crap and that's that done. OH COME ON FRIZ, this is the type of crap gags that Hugh Harman or Rudolf Ising used, and yet you're using it for your Buddy cartoons?? My goodness, I've only started reviewing the 1934 cartoons and here I am grumbling about it!

Meanwhile there is a hungry fox that steps into Buddy's garden (not strange - I get foxes in my garden all the time at night), but the fox looks at the hut off screen and seems to know that there are chickens that live there. The fox manages to enter the hut easily, and then starts to chase one of the hens that starts clucking for help. The hen gets to the point of being cornered, but as the fox grabs her - the hen then kicks his face with her feet. Other hens then start to help out, by using a saw as a slingshot to put their eggs on it. Why use their eggs? I know that they want to get rid of the fox, but what about the chicks that they were hatcing? :/

Othr hens and chickens then start to throw their own eggs at the fox, and the fox runs off, but manages to avoid getting hit by a egg. The fox then locks himself outside. Hang on a minute, isn't Towser meant to be inside helping the chickens? Oh wait, Towser is in his kennel of course - DUH! But why can't he be inside the hut where the chickens therefore he could scare the fox out immediately.

Towser wakes up inside his dog kennel, and doesn't realize that he has the rope attached to the kennel, with the rope attached to his neck. They start chasing each other around the chicken house, and after a few laps around the hut, the fox then jumps on top of the kennel while Towser is still barking. Buddy steps outside his his candle to see what the commotion is, but it turns out to obviously be his dog in trouble because of a pesky fox. Buddy shouts, "Hold him Towser!", but the door slams, with a bundle of snow falling on top of him from the roof because of the door slam. Buddy is almost locked out of the house but manages to get back in.

As the chasing is going on, Buddy puts on his hunting uniform and pulls his shotgun out to shoot the fox out of the way. But as Buddy is about to run out of the door, the shotgun blocks his way out of the door, causing him to spin around numerous times, but then falls out of the house. Towser then chases after the fox but the fox has a cunning plan to run through a fence that is missing a plank of wood, since Towser has a dog's kennel strapped to his neck, so as he tries to go through the narrow path of a missing plank in the fence, he can't go any further because of the kennel.

Towser then squeals, until Buddy arrives at the scene and grabs out a penknife so that Towser is set free to catch the fox. As they have almost lost the culprit, Towser goes to an investigation by sniffing for the fox's tracks, Buddy's gun does the same. Towser thinks that he has found what he has sniffed, and then digs up a big pile of snow. What turned out to be in the "big pile of snow" was a grizzly bear, in which Buddy and Towser both run for their lives. Buddy turns to shoot the bear, but after the blast comes another bear. *Spitting out water from water* WHAT?!?!?! I repeat, WHAT?!?! You can't shoot a bear and then produce another multiple - how did you come to THAT conclusion. Of course, what you might be thinking is that Buddy shot the bear, and another multiple was made from his body so that the bear got slightly smaller. Nope, the bear is still the same size! My goodness, who created these gags - was Friz Freleng convinced to use Tom Palmer's gags and follow an encylopedia of them (all of whom are awful)?

Buddy continues trying to shoot more bears, in which a THIRD bear comes out - okay, does Buddy have some type of gun that creates multiples? Buddy and Towser then run into a cave where the three bears follow them. Buddy and Towser step out once that they are safe again, and no more bears chasing them, but Buddy double checks as he pulls down the zip so that he WON'T be chased. The fox from whom we've seen earlier returns, and then uses these icicles on a branch of a tree as a slingshot that jabs Buddy and Towser. As Buddy starts to chase after the fox again, he starts blasting with his gun but instead he starts going all the place because of that.

The fox then hides under a tree hole, in which Towser barks as though he's found where he is. Buddy then places his gunt through the hole on the tree, in which the bullets goes through this weird looking branch that shoots out at Towser's behind, that causes him to yelp in pain. The fox is at the top of a half chopped tree, but blows a raspberry at Buddy. Towser then cools his behind in a lake, and furiously chases after the fox.

The fox then ascends up a hill, as Buddy and Towser follow. The fox then looks back at Buddy and Towser, but stupidly bumps into a tree in which he rolls down the hill forming into a snowball. Buddy and Towser both make a 'take' to the giant snowball and they descend down the hill quickly trying to avoid that snowball. The snowball then jumps from a lump in the snow, and is now in front of Buddy and Towser - which is good news to them, for about a few seconds, until they're behind the snowball again. As they run for their lives, Buddy ends up being caught in the snowball, and the same for Towser. The snowball then goes through a fence, in which the snowball is split in three.

The snowball split in three then crashes into a hut,  in which they are all weary. Buddy and Towser both look at the fox next to each other, they both pick up a paddle but the fox leaves early, but Buddy and Towser hit each other on the head by accident which makes them even more weary - and that's all folks.

This cartoon was just awful to watch, pointless gags - plotless cartoon. Buddy is just as bland as ever, and I don't understand why that ther had to be another dog, unless Happy the dog was too ugly for us audiences. Towser is sort of a similar design to Bruno from the Bosko cartoons, except that Towser is much, much more blander while Bruno was much more cuter. I mean practially this cartoon lose it's synopsis - I mean, Buddy told his dog Towser to watch the chickens for the night, and we only see about three minutes of that happening in that short, while the rest of the film was just wasted of a chase sequence from Buddy and Towser in the woods chasing over a damn fox, man. Why not chase it out of a garden, and not go out there in the woods for the whole time - get a hobby.

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