87. Buddy the Detective (1934)

Release date: October 17th, 1934

Series: Looney Tunes

Director: Jack King

Starring: Billy Bletcher (Mad Musician), Tommy Bond (Buddy)

Back to Buddy! I can’t say I missed him too terribly, but I did find myself wondering what this one would entail. Buddy goes on a hunt to save a kidnapped Cookie from the “mad musician”.

A windy, blustery night. The perfect time for an evil musician to play some menacing drones on the piano. He pauses and shakes his head, unsatisfied with his work (though it sounds fine to me). A tree limb outside his window sneaks in and plays “Shake Your Powder Puff”, a much jollier, happier tune, prompting the musician to grip his hair and grimace. He tries his drab melody once more, hissing “GAH! I need INSPIRATION!”, complete with the evil Billy Bletcher laugh.

The setup for this gag is great, it’s so nonchalant. The musician approaches a bottle and a cup, and you brace yourself as he gets intoxicated to loosen up. As he pours, a little frog jumps into the cup, and then into his hand. Of course! Perfect! He hypnotizes the frog and urges it to play a dirge for him. The frog settles on the much happier “Amaryllis”, dancing on the keys, which irritates the musician. Before any harm can be inflicted, the frog dives into a photo of a pond on the wall for refuge.

Desperate for good music, the musician resorts to hypnotizing a portrait of Napoleon brandishing a fiddle, the fiddle tunes once more upbeat and happy (and country). Even the musician doesn’t destroy the fiddle. It destroys itself as the tunes are simply too hot to handle. As archetypal as the villain is, he’s different from past villains we’ve seen. Billy Bletcher’s voice characterization is wonderful, and the villain’s frustration, albeit comical, is certainly relatable.

Fade to a newspaper, the headline screaming in bold letters “EXTRA! MAD MUSICIAN ESCAPES!” a pan out reveals that Cookie is the one ogling at the headline, glancing apprehensively at the storm outside her window.

Back to the musician, who snags his phone book and searches for a hapless victim to hypnotize. Fun little note, some of the numbers include cast and crew, such as “Clampett, R.” and “Clopton, Ben”. However, as predicted, he settles on “Cookie” (no surname, of course) and rings her up. He hypnotizes her over the phone, urging “Come to me, my little Cookie!” Cookie rightfully refuses, but succumbs regardless and walks to his house in a daze. I get that she’s under the influence of hypnosis, but her walk cycle feels very stiff: you could still play with it. If you’re going to make her stiff and robotic, make it REALLY stiff and robotic so it seems deliberate rather than accidental... but I digress! 

Remember that this cartoon is called Buddy the Detective? Well, Buddy finally makes an appearance 4 minutes in. Cookie’s dog runs over to alert Buddy of Cookie’s whereabouts, knocking over Buddy’s chair, as well as a fishbowl. The dog breaks the fishbowl that was on its head and barks to Buddy, urging him to follow. He still doesn’t understand, but he does when the dog holds up a picture of Cookie in its mouth that Buddy had been admiring. He exclaims “Gosh, Cookie’s in trouble!” and dives right into some Sherlock Holmes garb that had been waiting conveniently at the door for him, and together they run off.

Cookie is droning out the same dirge the musician had been trying to play. A very humorous transition as it shows her banging on the keys, then turning around with a big grin as she plucked out some jolly ragtime music. The musician is infuriated, letting out an open mouthed scream towards the camera. He forces her to play the dirge, laughing maniacally.

Buddy and Cookie’s dog approach the house, wind still howling and thunder still booming. A regular James Bond, buddy uses a flashlight and a magnifying glass to burn an entryway into the door. Unbeknownst to Buddy, a mischievous spider lands on his flashlight once inside. Buddy signals for the dog to be quiet, shining his flashlight on various walls. The spider disappears and reappears with each flash, dancing and mocking Buddy. It’s certainly original, for this time at least. The dog gets frightened and runs away, knocking Buddy over and his flashlight. Buddy deserts the flashlight as he chases the dog.

Man, this mad musician is a murderer! An amusing gag of a skeleton coming out of a room and drinking from a water cooler, the water going right through it as Buddy observes in horrified awe. Buddy follows the skeleton, who uses an umbrella (love that it’s fittingly broken, just the skeleton of the umbrella is left) and heads out into the storm.

A terrified yowl distracts Buddy’s observation as he darts to find Cookie’s dog, who’s chasing another skeleton. The dog tackles it, snagging its leg. The skeleton then resorts to chasing the dog via crutches, nice visuals as the skeleton hobbles up the stairs and the stairs pushing to the ground into one giant slab. More stair gags galore as the dog slides down another staircase, the actual stairs pushing out like dominos and causing the skeleton to tumble over the pile.

Terrified, the dog gets a curtain stuck to its tail, barreling into Buddy and dragging Buddy along on the curtain like a sled. We’re reminded of Cookie’s existence as she begs for help, a clock’s pendulum launching Buddy onto the landing of the staircase (which has no discernible stairs). He pulls at the doorknob of where she’s held captive, yet the musician pops out from a mini window and smacks buddy. Cartoon physics to the rescue as buddy snags a door from an adjacent wall and plops it on the same wall, entering through that one instead.

Fight scene! That’s what all detectives do, right? Resort to fisticuffs? Buddy kicks the unsuspecting musician’s butt, and they brawl as they’re both thrown into a door, spitting them back out. Very amusing as the musician contorts himself and teaches under his legs to grab buddy, who’s trying to make a break for it. Buddy yanks the musician by his unruly hair and spins him around, tossing him into a wall. Who knew he had such strength? 

A piano stool lands on the dazed musician. Like a secret key, Buddy spins the stool, and out pops Cookie from the piano. He helps her down as she plays a few notes of the dirge to tease the musician, switching to ragtime as she and buddy dance, the musician writhing in agony. Another scream/swallow the camera as we iris out.

Not the most entertaining Buddy cartoon, but not at all the worst. The title feels kind of redundant, as Buddy didn’t do much detective worthy at all except put on a tweed suit. He barely had any screentime! I guess the directors didn’t quite know what to do with him. Cookie was cute, but a mere plot device—though the scene where she smiles gleefully as she switches to unprecedented ragtime was very amusing. The mad musician was the most amusing character. Great vocal characterization, great mannerisms, intriguing design. This cartoon felt it didn’t have much momentum or true urgency to it, and at times felt a bit dull and slow because of it. Nevertheless, worth a possible watch, if at all just to hear Billy Bletcher do his evil laugh. Peg Leg Pete as an evil musician! 

Link!