77. Buddy's Garage (1934)

Title card courtesy of Dave Mackey.

Warner cartoon no. 76.
Release date: April 14, 1934.
Series: Looney Tunes.
Supervision: Earl Duvall.
Producer: Leon Schlesinger.
Cast: Jack Carr (Buddy) and Bernice Hansen (Cookie).
Animation: Jack King and Sandy Walker.
Musical Score: Bernard Brown.

Before I begin my actual review, I have to say that this is an impressive title card I must say. There is an actual box package at the main title card which is just great and intriguing to an audience, comparing to the others when they're just plain black! Well, looks like this title card must go into my memorandum of "Reasons why Earl Duvall had potential as a Looney Tunes director".

Our carton begins with Buddy inside his garage who is sewing a tire by placing a patch on it. Buddy looks rubbery in that animation, and I guess that tells us it's an Earl Duval cartoon, while Honeymoon Hotel looked like Friz Freleng. He continues to sew the tire until it's finished, and then bites off the string attached to the sewing needle. We PAN to these kittens that are drinking milk out of a cat (in the fear of sounding dumb, but do kitten drink milk from their mothers)? One of the kittens then walk to a tire, and sucks it. There is then a tank of free water where there are ducks in there - makes sense to me (I don't think so). We see a fun gag that I enjoy is when there is a car that is scrubbing itself in the shower with a brush and soap - you even it's weird, then look at the sign closely that reads "Cars Washed". Buddy arrives with some oil and squirts it in parts of the car that is needed, it causes the inanimate car to giggle.

We see a shot of Towser sleeping (boy he sure looks older compared to Buddy and Towser). As Towser is sleeping, next to him is a flattened out tire that Buddy spots, so he finds a a pipe to place it on the wheel. Towser is snoring, but he still pumps up the tire. Mmm, if Towser could do that then he has strong lungs - still what could be a harmful gag since it's an Earl Duvall one.

Meanwhile there is a bee who's sitting down on one of the equipments, and he sharpens his blade stinger with a type of sharpener, as his plan is to pop the wheel with his stinger, and he so does it. Instead he uses his stinger like a drill - until the tire pops with air coming up and helium inside Towser. He then tries to chase the fly, but then swallows it. Don't swallow it you mongrel; it'll sting you! So Towser gets a funny feeling inside his stomach (with weary eyes) in which he spits out the bee.

Buddy then uses his hammer to hit on chisels as though he is playing the xylophone. Buddy then hears a "Yoo hoo" sound and notices that it's from Cookie. She brings a picnic basket that's for Buddy that excites Buddy. He tosses the fruit out of the basket in which it is all nicely prepared on the table. He then gets out a monkey wrench in which he uses it to crack walnuts, so at least it's telling us Buddy's tools even come in handy. We then get a random shot of Towser sniffing, but the inanimate gas pipe sprays gasoline on him, but gee - that's bad for him.

Cookie is also joining Buddy in his garage and he notices that Cookie's turkey is too small - so he thinks of an idea to pump it up so it will be good enough to eat. Buddy uses his knife to prods it to see if anything happens, but then it bursts leaving Cookie and Buddy to roar with laughter. Well that gag has been used many times in the past - and I guess it was funny back then but was it a popular gag back then from other studios?

Buddy hears a honking sound from outside and it means his lunch break is cut short, as he has to help a customer. Why it's the tough guy that Earl Duvall used - and sadly we don't even know his name, considering that he was never given one. The brute is inside his car waiting for Buddy and Buddy arrives in a committed attitude. The brute asks him "Get it loaded up", with Buddy's reply "Yessir". As Buddy gets his car recharging it's batteries by using gas, the brute finds a poster of a baby holding a candle and lights it with his cigar. What?? Don't be ridiculous, but what? I mean how is this true, what is this poster like 4 dimensional or something?

The brute steps out of his car with borden, while Buddy is getting on with his job. The brute then enters inside a shack where Cookie is powdering herself with make-up in front of the mirror. The brute then tries to get Cookie to kiss her in which she almost shrieks. Buddy is squirting oil, in which it squirts like a party whistle. Buddy hears Cookie's screams in which Buddy shouts "Hey you", but the brute feels threatened by Buddy and is about to get him. Cookie uses a drill to drill the brute's ass to stop him. The brute chases Cookie, then Buddy chases after him. The brute tilts a scaffold of tires onto him, in which he's completely stuck. (Sigh) this looks like another: say it kids: Villain chasing girlfriend sequence.

The brute manages to get away inside his own car (and it appears to be already full of gas already, since Buddy was still busily working on it). Luckily the smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe pulls the tires off Buddy, so he can continue the chase, and does so by using his cars to chase after the brute. She screams for help ad Buddy is doing his real best to try and stop the horrid man. An ice cream van and another van both jump from one side of their way, so those fast cars can go fast (couldn't they have stopped the tough guy from going anywhere?) but a hand comes out of the vans and shake hands.

The car where the tough guy and Cookie are ends up approaching a sign that reads road closed. So since the tough guy doesn't want to break the law. Argh jeez, why couldn't be just crash through that gate, it's like as though he doesn't want to get in trouble with the law, when actually abducting someone's girlfriend is breaking the law. Instead the car acts like a horse and jumps over the sign. Why couldn't he run it over, he is pretty bad-ass if you ask me. The brute's car then drives through a bridge and somehow the smoke goes through some of the planks of wood that it ends up taking all of it all (and how does that even work? You can't do that with wood, it's unnatural). Buddy's car who is catching up then splashes into the water since the bridge is practically almost damaged.

Buddy is still underwater, but he eventually catches up into the surface and does he by still driving of course, and with his tow; he catches a fish by luck. As Buddy is driving, he is distracted with the sounds of cats meowing, (are they the same kittens from the garage or kittens from out of nowhere?) The cats managed to eat up most of the fish leaving out the bones that is left. The car that the brute is and Cookie -- okay, I'm getting tired of keeping on repeating it - I'm just going to say the brute car, is that okay? So the brute car goes through a different direction, and Buddy's gets lost with the navigating, and it gets so the car has to sniff like a dog so that he can navigate his way to find the brute car.

Buddy's car then discovers his way on where the brute car is, so he drives along the path very fast and crashes into a laundry van. The car appears with several clothing on it such as a bra. The brute car drives fast, but skids when he reaches a house and drives through the other way. It seems that Buddy is acting all road rage by crashing into that house with a bed of children attached to his tow. I mean a lot of parts of the bed keep falling off and Buddy is causing more damage than the brute is - poor twins. As Buddy has now caught up with the brute car, Cookie continues to scream in which Buddy has an idea to use his tow hook on Cookie's skirt in and places her in his car.

Buddy then unloads his hook again, but grabs it on the villain's shirt and places him on the ground where he almost skids but he keeps on getting hit by each rock on the ground, and even on mud. Buddy then moves the brute on a wooden gate beside the car in which the tough guy gets attacked by each wooden end of the gate. Buddy and Cookie are reunited, but Buddy lets out of the fumes from the exhaust pipe to be placed on the brute - and that's all folks.

I liked the opening shorts of this cartoon in which it felt like what Earl Duval did to me, it had some fine gags in the beginning and it really felt as though we're sticking with the title of this short - Buddy's Garage. He seemed busy on the job, but everything sequences to a chase sequence right at the middle of the short to the very end, and I just feel that part was stupid with these lame gags albeit pointless plot. The tough guy seemed to be a favorite character by Earl Duvall, and obviously his creation - will be come back again? We'll find out. It feels to me as much like as though Duvall worked on most of the opening, but it feels like someone else was in charge of the rest of the cartoon - did Jack King finish off his productions when he left the studio?

I should tell you that this is Earl Duvall's last cartoon that he directed for Warner Bros. and probably the last he ever worked on. He got into an alcoholic argument with Leon Schlesinger that he should be the highest paid animation director in the animation industry, and the argument was quite grim. Hours later Duval came over to apologize, but it was discovered that his top animator Jack King was promoted to director by Leon Schlesinger, and Earl was barred from ever setting foot into the Leon Schlesinger Studios ever again.