357. Who's Who in the Zoo (1942)

Warner cartoon no. 356.

Release date: February 14, 1942.

Series: Looney Tunes.

Supervision: Norm McCabe.

Producer: Leon Schlesinger.

Starring: Mel Blanc (Porky Pig / Animals), Robert C. Bruce (Narrator).

Story: Melvin Millar.

Animation: John Carey.

Musical Direction: Carl W. Stalling.

Sound: Treg Brown (uncredited).

Synopsis: A wacky spot-gag short centered at a city zoo. Porky Pig is portrayed as the zookeeper.

Although Norm McCabe had already received his first sole animation credit for Robinson Crusoe, Jr., it's safe to assume that this is quite possibly the first McCabe cartoon that he directed from start to finish. Though there is little evidence to suggest that, 'Crusoe' does feature elements that suggest Clampett had originally started the short, and not to mention his drawing style was still fragmented.

Moving forward to this cartoon, it's a different artistic style compared to Clampett; a style which you can associate with a lot of McCabe's cartoons. Here, it appears that McCabe hasn't quite comfortably stepped out to reveal what his true directorial talents can require: he is approached with a spot-gag short, but not based on a new subject.

Set as a zoo-themed short, this concept had already been explored previously in Tex Avery's A Day at the Zoo, which had the mediocre gags you'd expect. Although the gags range differently in this short, its still written in the same style that you've explored Tex do for the past four years at Warner Bros. Not to mention, it's another cartoon where Tubby Millar is attempting to throw Porky Pig in whatever scenes are opportune for him, and once more, giving him another limited role: as a zookeeper.

Millar creates an appropriate scenic location for the zoo, in order to create a well-delivered comedic error which is well satirised from Bob Bruce's narration. Set in Azusa, California; The narrator begins by reading out the short's title; and then reads the name of the zoo as seen from the screen.

Combining the title and the zoo's name together in a speech, it is a real tongue twister, and Bruce's narration is well acted, capturing the tongue twister difficulty to a tee.

The opening scene, although its riddled with poor puns, and the whole sort: it does make up with an impressive pan shot of some of the animals displayed in their cages. Then it dissolves into another camera pan as the camera takes you to another line of animals (with puns) featured on display.

You get some corny puns labelled to the animals in their cages; offhand you get the corny "tortoise and the hair" gag, as its revealed the tortoise only has one piece of hair on his forehead. The other would be the 'bum steer' gag where you see a cow dressed as a tramp, which you see in the second camera pan shot. The pan shots aren't exactly as complicating or as inventive as Tashlin's pans, but they're great shots in establishing some of the animals you'd expect to see from cage to cage.

More and more corny puns are tossed into the mix, abundant enough to carry the whole cartoon. To look a little more further at where these puns just lack creativity or integrity would be gags such as the "march hare" gag, where a group of marching hares are walking in a single line walking a la army marching. Other really corny puns which is amateurishly developed, but the output meets a funny result otherwise.

This centers in the middle of the short, where we view the different types of elephants displayed at the zoo. First off, we see the 'African elephant' who is seen very plainly eating, being its only anticipation. Then, we meet an 'Indian elephant'. With the outcome not being an ethnic Lascar stereotype, we get the straight-forward pun resulting in a Native-American elephant who is seen whooping and producing a rain dance, which is a more forgiving stereotype, even though I never see it as not being PC. It's a silly gag, but of all the madness combined into the gag: it works to that degree.

One of the funniest gags in the short with a great unpredictable outcome is centered in the sanctuary scene where the narrator identifies a vulture. Looking very stern from its appearance, the narrator informs the audience of the vulture's instincts: "A sneaky bird of prey", "a lonesome scavenger", etc.

After blurting out a couple of cutting remarks to the vulture; the bird responds by breaking out in a snobbish, calm attitude as he simply speaks back by reciting the Sticks and Stones nursery rhyme.

The rhyme is also a moral, to help encourage children to ignore taunts or name-calling from various people. The outcome of the scene is not only surprising, but you enjoy the characteristic, camp voice Mel Blanc performs, who could devout a great performance, even out of a one-shot, minor character. Another great sequence, a pun intended, but also with a great outcome is seen earlier in the show: in another sanctuary scene. The narrator identifies the bird as a bald eagle. The eagle is disturbed when he is being called a 'bald eagle' by the narrator several times more loudly, until the eagle removes his hairpiece and yells: "Okay blabbermouth, so I am BALD!". It's another good diction voiced well by Blanc, who himself saves an average gag to being passable.

Porky Pig's role in the cartoon is still limited, but his scenes are scattered randomly through the short, perhaps to try and make his role look dominant. Porky's role in the short is as a zookeeper with gags and other businesses, that are unrelated to a travelogue parody. His role and the scenes he's in are really pointless combinations to be placed in a spot-gag short.


The gags would have worked better as a passable short if it were a cartoon focused primarily on Porky as a zookeeper. Anyhow, the first scene we find Porky walking merrily holding a mallet with him. When questioned by the narrator, he responds that he uses it to feed the giraffe.

It's explained further on, that his method on feeding giraffes is by striking the mallet in the style of a strength tester display that you'd see in a funfair. The first few times, the giraffe narrowly misses the bucket as Porky attempts to strike harder each time. After a series of tries, it reaches to the giraffe except the food splatters over his face, ruining his meal.

The next sequence Porky is seen feeding the seals fishes, except one seal refuses a piece (slamming it back, striking Porky's face). Then, in his scene; he is seen as a demonstrator on the narrator's commentary about the toughness of the hippo's skin. Porky demonstrates he consistently prodding a stick to the hippo's skin during his commentary. Then, out of nowhere, both commentaries contradict otherwise as the hippo breaks down laughing, ticklish at the stick poking him. It's another amusing, contradiction gag which are beneficial for entertainment.

At the same time the short was in production, the U.S. government played a part in propaganda by encouraging the public to help save scraps in preparation for World War II. It seemed rather fitting for the time the short was made to feature gags related to the war effort. One gag features a black panther who is sloppily drinking from his bowl.


After filling up the entire bowl, he finds to his astonishment a symbol which he tosses over a "save aluminium" scrap. I suppose this was the ideal symbol produced by the government used at the time so the public would be alerted to saving aluminium tin cans, pots, etc. to help the cause.

Another government-related joke also has some subtle humour blended in to it. The scene begins with a father rabbit, who already in the scene is the father of a multiple bunny rabbits. Reading the letter: he shows concern, anxiety and is almost at the brink of being panic-strikened. He gasps, "I can't do it! I can't do it! It's impossible. My gosh, there's no limit!". The curious narrator asks of the rabbit's concerns, and he turns to reveal the letter, as you can see in the screenshot. It's a nice subtle gag, which you'd expect out of Clampett; but instead Norm McCabe adds the right touch to the gag.

Like many spot-gag cartoons produced in Warner shorts, you get a satirical scene of a scene building up to suspense. The scene begins with the narrator explaining the intimidating instincts of a black bear. He is seen approaching towards a helpless lamb who is eating from a trough, as the narrator explains about his deadly claws which he uses "to hug his prey of death". And so, the bear approaches the lamb: and this is the height of the suspense that the scene carries.

Unlike many Warner fans, one might expect the bear to break down exclaiming, "I can't do it"; or the bear would romantically embrace the creature. The bear does the latter. Not to mention, it's another play-on word scene, as Tubby Millar uses emphasis on the word "hug" to suggest otherwise. Just as the bear hugs the lamb with affection--the narrator, misinterpreting that as danger, demands the bear to place the lamb down, but the lamb responds by sharing the same affection, "Oh for goodness sakes, mind your own business!". Love the Blanc falsetto voice.


And so, last but not least is the typical recurring gag which has been a popular formula when creating a spot-gag short. The star of this recurring gag is a lion who is seen pacing inside his cage with an ambiguous expression. A few times in the short, we see him still pace in his cage.

It isn't revealed until the ending sequence where, the lion finally stops pacing and looks from outside his cage with sheer delight. It turns out he's been waiting for the ice-cream man to arrive with his ice cream cart. He barks out ice-cream around the zoo, and notices the lion's eager attention for ice-cream.

The audience would be under the impression that the punchline was just a childish gag of a lion who was peckish for ice cream, but that isn't the case. As the ice cream man walks off screen to deliver the ice cream, we hear an off-screen munch. As it turns out, the lion as after the ice-cream man all this time, and not the ice cream itself. Cruel irony is awesome.

As this review comes to a close, my overall thoughts on the cartoon was rather tepid. As I wrote, Porky is very much unrelated to the cartoon, other than that he's a zookeeper, and some of the gags just don't seem to fit into the short. Not to mention, he appears to be written in the short as an attempt to save the short from being an uninspiring spot-gag cartoon. Like most spot-gags, you'll find it has some goodness as well as some blandness in taste. Mel Blanc and Bob Bruce both play their roles expressively as well as enthusiastically, despite having worked on such material so many times previously. You'd need to be this devoted an actor to carry on with such roles. Norm McCabe's sense of direction is also passable. He's not afraid to explore several aspects of subtle humour, as well as to make his shorts look visually pleasing, like the long camera pan shot. A vastly under-appreciated director, indeed.

Rating: 2.5/5.

356. Aloha Hooey (1942)

Warner cartoon no. 355.
Release date: January 31, 1942.
Series: Merrie Melodies.
Supervision: Tex Avery/Bob Clampett (uncredited).
Producer: Leon Schlesinger.
Starring: Mel Blanc (Sammy Seagull), Pinto Colvig (Cecil Crow), Sara Berner (Hawaiian bird).
Story: Michael Maltese.
Animation: Virgil Ross.
Musical Direction: Carl W. Stalling.
Sound: Treg Brown (uncredited).
Synopsis: Sammy Seagull shows a shipmate, Cecil Crow, in how to attract a dame, as they take an eye on a Hawaiian bird dancer.

By the time the cartoon had reached theatres, it was already established by the Studio that Clampett had took over Tex Avery's unit after his departure, but its surely plausible that during the short's production; this was indeed one of the shorts that was started by Tex, but finished by Clampett. In fact, it's a little harder to distinguish whose style is dominant in the cartoon, but as the short's credits don't give any answers--I'd like to say that this feels more like a Tex Avery cartoon, to be on the safe side.

Why I say so? Not only does the cartoon feature gags very much in Tex's style, but from an animation point (backgrounds, character designs and all); it looks like a Tex Avery short. Reflecting on other aspects such as timing: its hard to identify or finger point whose scene is which. At that point, both Tex Avery and Bob Clampett were already pressing their feet hard on the accelerator, as Tex's last few shorts had slicker pacing and more out-of-the-norm gags, whereas Clampett was just starting to break out from his bad working habits from producing mundane Porky Pig shorts. To say whose the dominant director of the short, in my opinion, is inconclusive.

The opening shot is a prime example of how two characters should be introduced to one another, especially when written for an animated short. Michael Maltese demonstrates the character's personalities from not only their own genus, but from their geography.


Cecil Crow is already established as a Mid-Western dim-witted crow "from Iowa", whereas Sammy Seagull was created as a sailor, and it seems fitting to fit both personalities from different cultural aspects; creating good exposition.

Admittedly, I'm not a fan of the alliterated names Maltese or whoever conceived, as it's just generic names anybody could create for a character: it lacks juice or appeal. In fact, in the dialogue for the introduction scene, Maltese writes in alliteration a few times, mainly heard in Sammy's intro: "the sailor the sailor from Singapore to the South Seas". The short, too, marks the return of voice actor Pinto Colvig, who for a few years left Hollywood to work for Fleischer over at Florida, and his distinctive voice is put to good use as he voices the Crow.

The whole opening is written simply to not only introduce the characters, but to also set the cartoon's ambition to carry the plot.
Both have arrived from distant places but to a tropical island. Cecil's excuse was he was "tired of farmin'", and opted to seek after some "Hula-hula dancers" looking like Dorothy Lamour, who at the time was a popular actress for her Hula figure, most notable for starring in the original Road to... comedies. And so, the Seagull agrees to help out with Seagull in finding a dame for him. Out with his telescope from under the sheet of a lifeboat, they spot just the right bird: which is the Hawaiian bird dancer, who is designed to resemble Lamour.

Following that, the two birds depart the ship to the tropical island where they are greeted by the Lamour bird. The rest of the cartoon, however, is mainly the seagull and the crow motivating themselves in an attempt to win the girl's affection. The scenes with Sammy Seagull, though, aren't fulfilling at all, and the scenes lack much creativity as well as gags that Tex or even Clampett didn't offer.

Sammy is pulling tricks towards the Hawaiian dancer in a way to impress her, such as Sammy flying in the sky like an airplane. I suppose, the gag is that he is flying in the style of the plane, and creates a love heart in the shape of a cloud form.

I suppose, to a minority it might be amusing, but from the reviewer's perspective, I expected a bigger send-off, it just seems too tame a gag for Tex or Clampett's taste. The other gag which Sammy uses to impress the dancer is a gag in the same category, for the seagull does another gag acting as a dive-bomber; and that's literally all the gag is to it.

Comparing the gags of the Crow's attempt to woo the Lamour bird, the gags are better anticipated and show a fresh comparison between the crow and the seagull's personalities. The Crow character is already portrayed as a dim-wit, whereas the seagull is already the ideal everyman. A problem with that personality is its difficult to execute broad, vaudeville gags to a wonder-boy character, especially when doing it right.


Characters like Cecil Crow, on the other hand are much easier to conceive broader gags. In his attempt to charm the Lamour bird, he attempts to copy the actions of Sammy Seagull, but finds that he loses his speed limit and falls directly under the sea.

The underwater sequence is a great showcase for character animation by Rod Scribner, who captures the dimwitted persona very well into the character. The crow is still puffing his cigar underwater, and not having any sudden realisation that he's underwater.

What's a gag without the crow striking a flame through his matchstick whilst underwater? Only Tex (or Clampett) could have made such a gag look so subtle. Until, the crow remarks: "Gosh, I didn't know you could light this underwater..UNDERWATER?". Cecil's double-take was also greatly caricatured with Rod, who hits the accents right. The second gag in his third attempt to impress the dancer, is another great showcase of comedic timing, hitting it right on the beam. In a attempt to copy the Seagull's actions as a dive-bomber; he starts off with an average lift-off, but just then he ends up jerking consistently, and spazzes up like an engine going out of hand. These are both great scenes which blends in well to the character's instincts.

After a series of gags from a competition between the Seagull and the Crow, the competition breaks off into a dilemma for Cecil Crow. After an avoidance from the shark, Cecil quietly inhabits himself inside a turtle shell, hiding out of fear. Discovering quickly that another turtle resides in that shell, they both start fighting inside the shell, causing a racket. The part where supposedly the crow is raising his fist inside the shell to slam the turtle really shows power and monument weight in animation, that you feel the pain. Note how the turtle greatly resembles, Cecil Turtle, who had appeared earlier in the Bugs Bunny short, Tortoise Beas Hare. To make this even more coincidental, both the characters in the scenes were supposedly called "Cecil" (even though the turtle is unnamed in the short).

Areas which appear to show some of Tex Avery's humour is evident in some of the scenes, as well as scenes that I've already covered. In the first attempt of attracting the girl's attention, the first goal was to retrieve a clamshell successfully.

The seagull did the task effortlessly. For Cecil Crow on the other hand, the goal backfired. As soon as the crow opens the clamshell, we find a protesting clam inside the shell yelling incoherently before squirting water into the crow's face.

The sort of juvenile humour feels like it was executed the way Tex would have done it, though in some respects Clampett was certainly more juvenile than Tex. Another gag, appearing in the short's climax, is almost certainly Tex's own where we get an introductions scene of the cartoon's villain: a vicious gorilla. His jersey clearly labels him as "The Villain", but just to get cocky, the back of his jersey reads: "As if you didn't know" which is a decent tongue-in cheek gag which Tex adored.

Not to mention; you get the idea that the pacing is still building up; much like how Tex Avery and Clampett were building up their pace both in that same period; that its once again hard to distinguish whose timing is which. I'm going to suggest this might have been Tex Avery's work, for he did experiment a lot with rapid pacing, especially extensive use of dry-brushing effects.

The scene of the crow narrowly escaping the shark's jaws just features a beautifully rapidly paced scene, as well as a beautifully executed gag that it works on its own. Just as fires out the scene like a missile, all of his feathers fall out of the scene, making the gag feel more believable and convincing.

The second scene which features some beautiful timing and staging would be the starfish scene. Once again, the scene requires some beautiful and appealing dry brush work which makes the animation look very inventive, but also convincing in force. In a close-up shot, Cecil Crow struggles to pull the starfish from the top of his head, and then leading to a fight between the Cecil and the starfish, but as you'd expect: the starfish defeats him validly.

This leads to a mini fight scene, where the violence occurs behind a shrub, but the violence can still be visualised through the crashing motion that it gives. After a series of failures of impressing the girl, Cecil Crow finally defeats the villain of the short and wins the girl's affections. I guess the irony of the scene was that the crow failed to complete such simpler tasks, but had the knack to fight the vicious gorilla. And so, the new couple embrace one another and kiss. The final scene, though, ends in a very wimpy sense. Sammy Seagull bids them farewell as the sun sets. In the final scene, Cecil Crow and his new mate both wave back goodbye as they fly away from the tropical island, and followed by new offspring. It's a pretty weak way to end the short, for it lacks satire and taste: especially from a director like Tex, who would always satirise an ending to make it a suitable payoff. Here, it ends at a Disney-ish
sendoff.

Over who the dominant director of the cartoon was, its still debatable, but like I said, I'm more willing to say its a Tex Avery short. In all, this short was pretty weak in terms of satire. Though alliterated names are fun, here it just seems to lack creativity, but that's not all: some of the gags created themselves lack creativity. In all fairness, the character development in the short was paid off well, and believable enough in that sense. Cecil Crow at least saved the short from its uninspiring moments. I suppose the fact that the short was supposedly worked on by different directors, and yet the outcome didn't really meet to good results? Who knows. It wasn't a terrible short, but it felt so uninspiring, and especially reviewing the short was very uninspiring; as apart from the faster pacing delivered in the cartoon's action scenes; the rest of the cartoon is overall, mundane.

Rating: 2.5/5.

355. The Bird Came C.O.D. (1942)

Warner cartoon no. 354.
Release date: January 17, 1942.
Series: Merrie Melodies.
Supervision: Chuck Jones.
Producer: Leon Schlesinger.
No cast.
No story credit.
Animation: Ken Harris.
Musical Direction: Carl W. Stalling.
Sound: Treg Brown (uncredited).
Synopsis: Conrad Cat attempts to deliver a plant towards an empty stage theatre, which only leads towards chaos and confusion.


During Jones' early years as a director, his own created characters proved to not work as regular characters: Sniffles was a hit-and-miss character, the Two Curious Dogs didn't differ much--Conrad Cat just killed that lineup. This character is perhaps one of Chuck Jones' most confusing and blandest of the short-lived characters that he created.


You don't know if you can interpret him as just a silent goof-ball, or a Goofy rip-off in Conrad the Sailor, but in terms of how he was characterised, it really does backfire--even in this cartoon.

Whether or not this short was written by Chuck Jones himself, it's another prime example of how Chuck appeared to really not be capable of writing his own cartoons. It may not make much difference when he had writers like Rich Hogan writing shorts in that same manner, but even in Chuck's later career he proved to be a lackluster writer, especially in the 1960s.

The short (title parody of the film The Bride Came C.O.D.) consists of Conrad Cat, an employe of Arctic Palm Co. is delivering a piece of a plant towards the backlot of a studio, and consistently sidetracked from recurring accidents, and somehow wounds up towards an empty magic stage show: now that is a very clumsy piece of pacing in a cartoon story, showing no purpose too.

It's the sort of story pacing which just can't be done in animated shorts. It not only flaws validly, but it loses the audience's concentration, which is a serious problem concerning animation, as to create good animation and good gags, it needs to be registered well to the audience; in other words 'readable'.


Not to mention the "gags" that Jones creates for the short also show no inspiration or believability towards it at all, many of them feel forced, and the anticipation just makes the gags look very amateurish and dead. His somewhat goofy personality is also being forced with unfunny gags, and therefore making him unfunny himself.

Gags which lack execution and creativity that come to mind would be the sequence where Conrad attempts to deliver the plant pot through the back of the stage door. He steps out of his van, waters the plant, and then strolls towards the stage door where he finds he can't make his way through the door because of the width of the plants which blocks the entrance to the door.


The fact the gag itself fails is just because of how phoney the gag is, by making the plant feel somewhat human and block the entrance like its a pair of arms holdings its force from entering inside the stage door; its just delivered poorly to be even considered a gag, but the conception of the gag alone is abysmal.

To make matters even worse, the scene itself is riddled with terrible pacing for Conrad's attempts to make his way through the door is repetitive and dry.

Chuck would flirt with gag ideas of having inanimate objects appear alive and human in his earlier cartoons, such as having the door close itself; but for this short it just backfires validly.

And so, Conrad finally finds his way to move the prop tree into the stage door successfully by walking alone towards the stage door and quickly grabbing the plant inside the door as it closes on time. One of the most repetitive and perhaps poorly paced of many of Chuck's earlier shorts, as Chuck appears to struggle to tell a straightforward narrative.

If I were to nominate any signs where Chuck at least achieves a scene in his approach to humour as well as his timing, it would be the scene of Conrad unknowingly walking up a step ladder but drops rapidly to a lower level of the building, with off-screen violent crashes, and thus leading the camera to pan towards an elevator opening for Conrad to exit.

That is the one scene in the short which I'd consider to be the only funny scene. The stupidity of Conrad is nailed to a tee in the scene, especially in his characteristic walk which adds depth to his ignorance, and Chuck's timing for Conrad's drop is solid and well executed. Treg Brown also adds to the touch with his comical and appealing crash effects.

Conrad's walk animation is all animated on ones, and as soon as he doors, Conrad only appears for 3 frames in the drop; and leaving for his hat to float for another few frames before it falls with him. This is the sort of gag and timing which Chuck should have used more and more in the whole short, to make it passable. But just one small funny scene can't be enough to save an entire lackluster short, unfortunately.

Moving further on in the sound stage, Chuck moves the cartoon's plot to a completely different turn: where instead of Conrad delivering a prop tree to a stage show, he now has him spontaneously walking to an empty stage where Conrad attempts to entertain himself by performing magic towards an imaginary audience.


Conrad picks up the top hat where he is setting up for the trick, and in a close-up shot he manages to pull out a rabbit from the magician's hat, which as alone is cliched and dated a trick.

The scene itself is just a useless showcase, and having Conrad just sidetrack to a different scenario and there is just no purpose in terms of entertainment values which are overlooked in much of the cartoon. It doesn't add an identity towards the dim-witted Conrad, it's just a useless idea of changing the cartoon to a different setting, and its a transition that isn't handled well at all.

Despite its flaws, Conrad in the demonstration scene is very solidly animated, and its likely Ken Harris animated the scene for he's not afraid to change the axis of the character when moving in perspective. It's great to study when you watch the animator attempt to find an angle or attitude to the head to make the acting work better.

To make matters even worse not just for Conrad but the cartoon too, he ends up being confronted by a threatening, postured bird who lives inside the magician's hat. He marches sternly towards Conrad with a threatening glare before walking back to his hat. Note that its the same gag which was used originally in Stage Fright, and not to mention the same music cue.


It's rather unfitting to use an old gag which wasn't even funny to begin with, and yet use that again for a cartoon, and also to make it carry out for the remainder of the cartoon. By saying so, the rest of the cartoon pretty much centers on a battle of wits between Conrad and the bird.

It's a painful sequence to sit through not just in terms of repetition and pacing but because of the lack of sensibilities and charm featured in the sequence. It's unwatchable watching Conrad battling with the bird inside the magician's hat when its already predictable that the bird himself can easily intimidate and beat Conrad every time. The gag itself gets worse when Conrad, who grows sick of the bird tosses away the magician's hat but finds it anonymously returns and jams his face inside it, leading him to struggle to pull the hat off his face. It's just adding insult to injury for the poor quality and gags that Chuck keeps bringing into the short.

To show the sequence itself may not be truly terrible, Chuck at least brings in some emotion and creative expressions for Conrad, a quality that Chuck could use to at least make a lackluster sequence look charming in its own ways. It's pretty brave for Chuck to experiment with crude expressions that could go wrong in drawing, such as in the left screenshot of a perplexed Conrad whose eyes express it all. There he draws one eye contrastingly taller than the other, which itself is pretty gutsy for Chuck to create when creating new poses. Conrad's fuming face itself is a nice touch and is exaggerated to the point where you feel the anger of the character; and its a rare combination which Chuck was excellent at doing, and not to mention his animators who could put Chuck's posing into animation.

Leading towards the cartoon's closure, we sit through a very long pan and not to mention a very long, tiring piece of comic timing. Conrad's fall off the stage is passable enough, but it leads to such a confusing gag delivery to regard as. Conrad's fall leads him to pan horizontally to the left as the orchestra's instruments are left flying upwards, with Conrad unseen but the damage he is making is evident.

It's another poorly conceived gag which can't be perceived as even being entertaining or passable, as for a gag its just total incoherence. Not to mention the camera pan is moving as a slow pace, and henceforth making the speed or anticipation of the gag even unfunnier.

Conrad rises his head from the other edge of the stage, dizzy with flying birds. Conrad, picking up the plant then rushes towards the door to supposedly escapes but crashes towards a door blocked by bricks. After causing such chaos, he finally crashes towards a case with a group of top hats seen on display.

The final gag conclusion ends with each copy of the threatening birds walking out from their own top hats pacing towards Conrad. They pull the top of the hat down towards Conrad's face, before proceeding to walking back to their own hats.

After spending one month away from blogging due to work as well as a brief illness, this hasn't been a welcoming back short to review. As explained throughout the entire review, this is without doubt one of Chuck Jones' all-time worst Warner Bros. cartoons he ever made, as well as one of the worst Warner Bros. shorts in general. It's gag delivery is so poorly conceived and constructed, its confusing to follow through meaning the cartoon is easy to lose your attention span, but on top of all of that: the cartoon is merely just a bore. That's the worst of it, it's just a very boring short with lacks the magic or quality that you associate with Chuck Jones as well as Warner Bros. I'm convinced this might've been the cartoon which caused Leon Schlesinger to provoke Chuck into producing funnier cartoons, and from this point on: you start to see much more broader cartoons which end up living up to the name of 'Looney Tunes'.

Rating: 0.5/5.