Release date: April 14th, 1934
Series: Looney Tunes
Director: Earl Duvall
Starring: Bernard Brown (Buddy), Jane Withers (Cookie), Billy Bletcher (Villain)
Get a load of that fancy title card! This would be Earl Duvall’s last short at Warner Bros. His short career was put to an end when he got into a drunken argument with Leon Schlesinger (presumably over budgets) and was fired. I’m relatively indifferent to Duvall, nothing really speaks to me about him, but I do have respect for him in that he kept Buddy’s character going and gave him a total redesign after Tom Palmer’s disaster of Buddy’s Day Out. Anyway, Buddy works at a garage, but his duties are interrupted when Cookie gets kidnapped.
Our happy little boy scout persona is whistling away to “Puddin’ Head Jones”, an underscore that would be used frequently by Carl Stalling, while sewing a patch to a tire. A family of cats accompanies buddy, all sucking on their mother, save for one who opts to suckle on the air tube of the tire instead.
A car comes to life and scrubs itself under a shower, buddy squirting some oil on it for the finishing touches, including inside the car’s “stomach” and prompting it to giggle. A happy and upbeat scene, yet unoriginal and a standard.
Towser’s asleep near a car with a flat tire. Buddy, the master of ingenuity, puts an air hose in Towser’s mouth, causing the tire to blow up with air.
Of course, we can never have things go too smoothly. A pesky bee sharpens its stinger—which happens to be its nose—and prepares to pop the tire, sweeping the dust off and giving it a little elbow grease.
Sure enough, the tire pops, jolting Towser awake. Towser spots the culprit immediately and tries to eat the bee, repeatedly chomping down and gnashing his teeth to no avail. Finally, he succeeds, the bee swallowed. A little moving bump in Towser’s fur and continued happy buzzing to “Puddin’ Head Jones” signals the bee is alright and still a nuisance. Towser spits the bee back out (a nice little detail on his pupils expanding in various circles with shock), and the bee is free to go.
Back to our musical buddy roots as he uses a hammer to play chimes against a wall of chisels. A “Yoo-hoo!” from Cookie disrupts his concert, and eagerly he goes to see her. She’s packed lunch for him, and together they set up a little picnic in the garage—complete with a great gag of Buddy peeling the skin off the pineapple so it’s just a yellow (“yellow”) blob. A monkey wrench is also used to crack open some walnuts. There’s a cutaway gag of a gas nozzle spraying Towser for just sniffing around. Rude! The gag feels out of place and added in last minute. Back to Buddy, who uses an air nozzle to inflate a turkey, which pops. A true genius at work!
The reoccurring jailbird character makes an appearance as an impatient customer. While he waits for buddy to give him his fill of gas, he uses the candle the baby from the classic "Time to Re-tire" poster as a means to light his cigar. Man, I’m sure that’s overused, but I love it regardless!
As Buddy fills the brute’s car with gas and inspects the motor, the brute wanders into the shop, right over to where Cookie is reapplying her makeup. The kidnapping traditions never die! He grunts “You go with me, yes?” and before she can object, he scoops her up and runs off.
Buddy hears Cookie’s squeals and runs to put an end to the kidnapping. Cookie the Riveter takes a riveter to the crook’s butt, who jumps up in pain before he can strangle Buddy. Nevertheless, he snags cookie again and pours a shelf full of tires on buddy to restrict him. The brute and his damsel in distress make off in his car, the exhaust fumes exploding in Buddy’s face and freeing him. Buddy grabs his own car, a tow truck, and off to the races.
Two cars narrowly avoided beating folded into scrap metal as the chase whirls right past them. The cars manage to jump away just in time, shaking hands in camaraderie. A road closed sign blocks the villain’s path, but his car gallops over it and jumps like a horse. Funny gag and concept, but drawn out a bit too long, one of those “too deliberate” setups. That could just be my short attention span talking, though.
Crashing into a toolbox allows a pair of handsaws to be attached to the rear wheels of the getaway car. Perfect for cutting a bridge when going over it! That IS clever—the saws cut the bridge and poor Buddy plummets into the waters below. The hook on the back of his tow truck snags a fish that is quickly devoured by a gang of hungry cats following behind him. The setup is a little strange, but works. One shot the fish is alive, one shot Buddy is driving, suddenly joined by a chorus of meows, and the next shot the cats are chasing a fish skeleton on the hook. It’d be more entertaining if there were some eating sound effects, or maybe the cats fighting with each other, but at the same time it works nicely. Now you see the fish, now you don’t.
A fork in the road stops Buddy in his tracks. However, his loyal car sniffs the ground and points out the right direction, and together they speed—crashing into a laundry truck along the way, adorning the car in a bra and some panties. Another staple, but an amusing one. Buddy nears the getaway car, crashing into a house and dragging along a frightened couple in bed with him, their bed reduced to a mere mattress as it drags along the ground.
Nevertheless, Buddy uses his hook to tow Cookie back to safety, and the crook, too—dragging HIM along the road. A nice underscore of “California, Here I Come” blares triumphantly in the background—a future favorite of Carl Stalling’s. Iris out as Buddy embraces Cookie while covering the crook in exhaust fumes.
This is probably the best Buddy cartoon so far—it wasn’t exactly riveting, but it was a good balance of action and upbeat happiness. The music enhanced it like always, and the visual gags were amusing. The cartoon seems to focus more on the kidnapping aspect than the garage aspect—not that that’s necessarily a detriment, though. This is certainly more amusing than some of the other Buddy cartoons we’ve seen, but the plotline remains relatively thin, some gags amusing and some all too familiar. It wasn’t bad at all, though. Nothing made me say “this is terrible”. Maybe worth a one and done watch.
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