If you enjoyed the first part of this series (posted yesterday), you’ll shout “Ole” for this installment.
Jumping ahead to 1938, we find Dick Rickard directing Ferdinand the Bull for Disney Studios. Young bull Ferdinand loves to sit under a cork tree sniffing flowers, despite his mother’s entreaties (voiced by Walt Disney) to play with other bulls. Later, full-grown, he unfortunately sits on a bee when scouts come to select bulls and goes wild, so he’s chosen for a big bullfight (the matador is a caricature of Walt Disney). The matador is tossed a bouquet, but all Ferdinand wants to do is sniff it. The frustrated matador is reduced to tears, and Ferdinand is returned to his home, where there are cork trees and flowers forever. The end.
Popeye, where have you been? He appears in the 1938 Fleischer short Bulldozing the Bull, directed by Willard Bowsky. Popeye is offered a free ticket to a bullfight but declines because of his stance against animal cruelty. His mind quickly changes when sexy señorita Olive Oyl shows up. After accidentally sitting in the toreador’s box, he is reluctantly escorted to the ring (Jack Mercer’s ad libs are priceless). Popeye’s attempts to reason with the bull get him pummeled. Olive comes to his rescue, but the bull chases her! Spinach time! Popeye whomps the bull, but refuses to land the killing sword thrust. The bull, overjoyed, takes Popeye and Olive on a ride around the ring. “Don’t be no bullfighter, ‘cause kindness is righter says Popeye the Sailor Man!”
• Check out this classic Popeye short on MeTV TOONS, or on Warner Bros. Home Video – or here.
Ay Carumba! We pick up the study in 1939 with Terrytoons stinker A Bully Romance starring Gandy Goose and directed by Eddie Donally. This cartoon features poor animation, a laughable story, and does not even take place in a bullfighting arena or ring. Gandy relates a flashback to a past trip to Mexico, where, within moments of arrival, he is dancing with and wooing a señorita goose. They go into her home and are immediately accosted by her papa, who demands that the price of marriage (already?) is defeating a bull.
They keep one in their house behind a curtain! Gandy and the bull race around the residence, partially wrecking it (and papa). The bull runs into a wall and, dazed, surrenders. Back in the present time, Gandy finishes relating his story, opens a door, and a bull immediately chases him offscreen. No mas, Mr. Terry!
Bullfighting toons get better when The Timid Toreador takes to the ring in 1940 under the direction of madman Bob Clampett, with Norm McCabe co-directing. The title character is a slimmer Porky Pig. The cartoon is loaded with then-popular references such as the Brown Sombrero, a bull named Slapsy Maxie Rosenbull, and a final shot of Porky morphing into Oliver Hardy. Porky is selling what appears to be the hottest tamales on Earth. After he inexplicably wanders into the bullfight ring, he’s in trouble: Slapsy has run off the matador and smashed a picador into his horse, resulting in a centaur. Porky seems doomed until Slapsy eats Porky’s entire box of tamales after jeering at the snacks. Well, that move really blew things up!
Woody Woodpecker dons the sword and cape in 1942, in “The Hollywood Matador”, directed by Alex Lovy for Lantz Studios. Woody is still in his garish 1940 Ben Hardaway design before Art Heinemann streamlined him. Woody is an established matador from the beginning (BTW: nothing in this toon references Hollywood except the Earl Carrol Theater quote over the entrance). Oxnard the Terrible is his foe. While the gags are nothing special (and some take too long), the animation of the furious bull is good. In the end, Oxnard and Woody bullrush (sorry) each other head-on. When the dust clears, Woody is selling bull burgers at the center ring. Tex Avery could have directed this cartoon in half its length.
When it comes to Throwing the Bull, you need Mighty Mouse for the job. Or do you? This 1946 cartoon, directed by Connie Rasinski for Terrytoons, is a virtual remake of the 1935 Terrytoon “The Bull Fight,” including the climactic scene, reanimated to put Mighty Mouse in Puddy Pup’s place. Never knew ‘ol Puddy was that strong, did ya? The highlights of the cartoon are Roy Halee’s singing and a lovely señorita mouse, most likely the work of Rasinski himself.
He may not seem like much of a matador, but Tex Avery’s Droopy is not to be underestimated in the 1949 MGM short Señor Droopy. Señor Droopy from Guadalupe and the Avery Wolf take on a savage bull, with the winner awarded anything he wants. Both the Wolf and Droopy are in love with beautiful singer/actress Lina Romay, but the bull is out to deny them both. Avery’s surrealistic gags are abundant. Some of the best include the Wolf performing several humiliating magic tricks on the bull, the bull’s hilarious disdain for Droopy, and Droopy’s violent, deadpan victory after the bull has destroyed the Wolf and then defaces Droopy’s magazine photo of Romay. “You know what? That makes me mad.” It turns out in the live-action finish that Ms. Romay is quite enamored of Droopy!
Famous Studios produced Fiesta Time in 1950, directed by Seymour Knietel. Only the final minute of this short featured a bullfight, which the matador wins by hiding a tombstone that reads “El Toro” behind his cape. Bash! Ole. This Screen Songs bouncing ball sing-along was considered a “lost” cartoon, but you can find it on the 2006 Harveytoons compilation DVD.
You can feel bad for El Toro Pantso, since he must take on Heckle and Jeckle in the 1951 Terrytoon Bulldozing the Bull, directed by Eddie Donnaly. The magpies start as tamale vendors, selling “ice cold, red hot tamales.” Caught by the ticket taker, they disguise themselves as toreadors and then guess what? After teasing the bull with a red-cape-and-ethnic-dancers routine, Jeckle pulls the bull’s hide off, revealing a cut of meat chart. Jeckle, after a kick in the butt, declares, “Of course, you know, this means war!” (Jeckle and Bugs Bunny must have been fans of Groucho Marx). The birds gain control of the bull and use him to chase the ticket taker. After a tussle in a cloud of dust (with some cute gags thrown in), it’s the ticket taker being chased by Pantso out of the arena, with Heckle and Jeckle showered with hats. About time Terry made a decent, funny bullfighting cartoon!
Goofy, who shows you “how to” do every sport the wrong way, takes on the sport of bullfighting in the 1953 Disney cartoon For Whom the Bulls Toil, directed by Jack Kinney. Goofy, driving his sloppy jalopy into Mexico, encounters a bull in the middle of the road. The locals note his attempts to dislodge it, and the word spreads. His adorers spirit The Goof away to the bullfighting arena, where they outfit him as a matador. There have been many stronger Goofy cartoons under Kinney’s direction; most of the footage shows Goofy running and howling in terror. The bull finally entangles himself in Goofy’s suspenders, and when Goofy tries to flee in his car, they snap back like powerful elastic bands. The bull and Goofy are propelled into the stadium wall, pushing the entire structure about 100 yards to the right. Goofy is the winner, and on his way home, he encounters what appears to be a bull once again blocking the road. As Goofy flees, the animal turns around: Aw, it was only a moo-cow!
So, Mr. Selzer? Bullfights aren’t funny? Tell that to Bugs Bunny, who stars in the 1953 classic Bully for Bugs, Directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese for Warner Bros. After missing another turn at Albuquerque en route to the Coatella carrot festival, Bugs emerges in a bullfight ring where a savage bull is chasing a terrified matador. The matador does not stop to give Bugs directions. Bugs, the bull’s new target, gets slammed out of the arena. “Of course, you know, this means war!” You bet it does! Bugs returns in matador gear and has an anvil hidden behind his cape.
Round One to Bugs. Bugs leads the bull in a silly dance that ends with the bull’s horns fastened to a large board. But the horns are detachable, and Bugs gets clobbered while mocking the bull—Round Two to Toro. Bugs takes Round Three by using the bull’s horns as a slingshot and sending a boulder into Toro’s face. It’s two to one, bull, until the bull bashes Bugs through a wall—tie score. Bugs takes the lead with an infuriating Mexican Hat Dance. Bugs looks to put the fight away with a rifle hidden behind his cape, but the charging bull swallows it and finds that his horns are now pistols! He runs out of ammo, swallows “elephant bullets,” and explodes while Bugs laughs. We’re still tied. The bull charges Bugs so violently that Bugs writes his will, but simply opens the door and watches the bull run for miles. When the bull rushes back, he soars through a Rube Goldberg setup that blows him up and sends him into a wall, defeated. Victory goes to Bugs, who holds a cape that proclaims, “The End.”
This Looney Tunes cartoon deserves a longer description because it is simply the best and funniest bullfighting cartoon of all time. “Bully for Bugs” has all the excellent Jones/Maltese touches: underplayed facial expressions, the bull’s thoughts being evident without a word spoken, minimal movements that speak volumes, coupled with great comic violence. If you see just one of these bullfighting cartoons, it should be this one.
• To see the Bug Bunny bullfighting classic – CLICK HERE.
It’s a step down to the following classic cartoon, 1955’s Bull Fright starring Casper the Friendly Ghost, directed by Seymour Kneitel for Famous Studios. What? Casper in a bullfighting cartoon? He wouldn’t fight a butterfly! What he can do, however, is train Pancho, a baby bull who yearns to be like his tough, confident Papa, who is a star in the bullfighting ring. After some training mishaps, the scene cuts to a real bullfight featuring Papa, with Casper and Pancho in attendance. Papa is dazed after running into a wall, and Casper rides Pancho into the arena to confront the matador. Animator Myron Waldman succeeds in making Casper look angrier and more threatening than in any other cartoon, but why bother? We all know what happens when the matador sees “El Spirito!” right? Need I bother to add that Papa is now proud of his little son? Ay, Hermano!
Want to get A Bum Steer? Check out this 1957 Terrytoon directed by Mannie Davis and Gene Deitch. Beefy Bull (a.k.a. Rocky Toriano) is hanging up his horns after an undefeated career. Side note: Beefy’s professional name is a play on boxer Rocky Marciano, who also retired undefeated. Marciano was from my hometown, Brockton, Massachusetts, where he was affectionately known as “The Brockton Bomber.” These facts are infinitely more interesting than this cartoon. Young Beefy Jr. wants to follow in Dad’s footsteps, but Mama forbids it and commands him to practice music.
Meanwhile, a world-famous bullslinger, Panhandle Pete, calls Beefy out of retirement with an irresistible offer. The fight is on, and Pete confuses Beefy with lasso rope tricks before body-slamming him. Mama, horrified, turns off the TV as Junior lights out for the stadium. As Beefy is about to become bullburgers, Junior (too) easily saves the day. Have we seen this movie before?
Tom and Jerry, where have you been? Turns out Jerry has moved to a Mexican villa along with a (fully pictured) female owner and a goofy orange cat. This event must have happened in 1957, because that’s the date of the cartoon Mucho Mouse, directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera for MGM. Jerry is now El Magnifico, and the orange cat, directed to catch him, is clearly no match for the mouse. The lady of the house hires Olympic, U.S., and World Champion Mouse Catcher Tom, who arrives bedecked in trophies and medals. The battle begins with Tom firing Jerry out of a cannon, but the undaunted mouse returns. Tom alters his form to resemble a bull while Jerry plays matador. Tom ends up with a jug smashed over his head and a sliding crash into a wall. Jerry then does the bull-disappearing-into-the/cape gag and spills Tom to the floor. After Tom’s defeat, the lady of the house returns to find Tom and the orange cat playing guitars as Jerry pilfers more food. Six cartoons later, the MGM Hanna Barbera theatrical series of Tom and Jerry cartoons would end.
1965 seemed like a good place to end the “classic” era of bullfighting cartoons, and who better to close the show than the Pink Panther? In Bully for Pink, directed by Hawley Pratt for DePatie/Freleng, Pink imagines himself as a matador, but the cape he finds is a moth-eaten rag. Pink sees Marvelo the Magician exiting a building with his “Magic Cape,” which Pink pilfers.
At the bullfighting arena, a fierce bull awaits, but the cape begins using him as a magic act, including the bull-disappearing-into-the-cape-act, from which an angry rabbit emerges. When the cape is tossed away. Pink is in trouble, but he retrieves it in time to put the bull (and the angry rabbit) to sleep. Another dive into the magic cape produces half a bull on exiting. Using the cape, Pink restores the grateful bull just in time for a swarm of moths eat “The End” into the cape. A high-quality cartoon with good gags ends our 22-film survey.
Did I miss any? Please post the titles of any I may have overlooked in the Comments section below. Adios!
Martin Goodman is a veteran writer specializing in stories about animation. He has written for AWN and Animation Scoop – and lives in Anderson, Indiana.
I have two in mind:
“Mexican Joyride” (1947, WB, Arthur Davis)
“Mexican Cat Dance” (1963, WB, Friz Freleng)
And also “The Timid Toreador” (1940, WB, Bob Clampett and Norm McCabe)
Please note, Mr. Adair: “The Timid Toreador” _is_ listed above. It’s the fourth cartoon listed.
Whoops! Not sure how I missed that. My bad.
There is also UPA’s “Matador Magoo” from 1957 in which Magoo typically does not realize he has crashed a bullfight.
From the early 70’s an episode of “The Mouse Factory” hosted by Bill Dana examines three of the Disney cartoons referenced in yesterday’s and today’s posts. “El Terrible Toreador,” “Ferdinand the Bull,” and “For Whom the Bulls Toil” receive the Mouse Factory treatment, including some commentary thrown in by Dana. The Goofy cartoon is noteworthy in that it brings back the original character of Goofy, voiced by Pinto Colvig, as opposed to the Everygoof character into which he had evolved in numerous shorts. There are also some sly digs about radio and instant fame.
And it may fall outside the scope of this overview, but the Flintstones episode “Fred El Terrifico” features not only Fred fighting a bull-o-saurus in the arena, but also contains quite a bit of adult humor and is one of the more immersive vacation episodes, giving something of the flavor of a trip to Mexico–enhanced by the musical underscore.
Regardless of Eddie Selzer’s opinions on the comic possibilities of bullfighting, “Bully for Bugs” is, as you say, the funniest cartoon ever made about that subject. I love how the bull leaves a flurry of hooves behind him whenever he charges, like Witch Hazel and her hairpins.
Needless to say, Selzer did not submit “Bully for Bugs” to the Academy for consideration in 1953. However, the Academy did receive a submission of another bullfighting cartoon that year, namely Famous Studios’ “Toreadorable”, starring Popeye, Bluto and Olive Oyl. Like every other cartoon that Famous ever submitted to the Academy, it was not nominated for an award.
As for omissions, I recall the Flintstones episode “Fred el Terrífico”, in which Fred inadvertently gets thrown into the bullring while on vacation in Rockapulco. Or aren’t we counting TV cartoons here?
If I had a nickel for every time a studio submitted a cartoon for an Oscar and Chuck did it the same year, better, but WASN’T submitted, I’d have two nickels- which isn’t a lot but it’s weird it happened twice (Toreadorable/Bully for Bugs and Robin Hoodwinked/Robin Hood Daffy).
“A Bully Romance” is done much better as “A Torrid Toreador” (1942), starring Gandy’s partner Sourpuss in the lead. Follows most of the same beats as the former, but in Technicolor, with stronger gags and animation.
“The Hollywood Matador” was originally titled “The Mad Matador” and is notable for having a majority of its runtime re-filmed to remove depictions of stereotypical ‘lazy Mexicans’. Lantz likely wanted to stay out of racial water after the reception of “Scrub Me Mama”…
Other antics include:
– Mortimer Mouse with some matador play-taunting in “Mickey’s Rival”… tho’ I suppose it’s not a *real* fight.
– Pink Panther falls into the bull-ring again in “Toro Pink”, produced for the All-New Pink Panther Show.
– Huckleberry Hound doing his stuff in “Bullfighter Huck”
– Famous Popeye gets a row in “Toreadorable” (1953). It’s bog standard Popeye from the era, with all the fun that comes with. I’m sure he tangled with at least one bull in the 200 some-odd episodes for TV.
Then there’s “Pedro and Lorenzo” (1956), a Famous cartoon that puts another sentimental take on the sport. Young Pedro loves playing with his bullish best-friend, Lorenzo, until papa has to sell him to makes ends meet. As Pedro grows up, he becomes a great toreador, but during his first big fight, guess who the opponent is? Yes, Lorenzo grew up too, but to save face for the crowd, he hams up a fake death. And they lived happily ever after.
Unfortunately, the one series that seems tailor-made for a bullfighting story (Columbia’s Tito and Burrito) didn’t survive more than three entries. Shame, shame.
This was a fun survey of the Golden Age. If I recall, the cat and mouse weren’t the only duo named Tom and Jerry to appear in a bullfight.
In “A Spanish Twist” (Van Beuren, 1932), the two human friends find themselves stranded at sea, only to wash ashore along the coast of Spain. They visit a local cafe and have fun with the local populace, including castanets dancers. After using a woman’s long dress like a merry-go-round, Tom and Jerry bump into a matador, who sics his anthropomorphic bull henchmen (henchbulls?), only for the bulls to be done away with offscreen. As punishment, Tom and Jerry must fight another bull. (Didn’t he just see them wallop two bulls in a matter of seconds?)
At the bullfight, it turns out that Tom and Jerry have to fight an entire army of bulls, their introduction march set to “El Toreador” from the hit opera Carmen. Some of the bulls form a construct, leaving the bull at the bottom to withstand all that weight. Jerry takes advantage of this and punches the bottom bull in the stomach, causing all the bulls at the top to fall down rapidly. Tom, meanwhile, jumps over the bulls like he’s in a football match, while the bulls are cheered on by anthropomorphic cows.
Jerry starts knocking out bulls left, right, and center, as Tom joins him in another match against bovines. Suddenly, a senior-aged messenger hobbles in with a message from the United States of America. The message? A telegraph from the Western Union stating that the 18th Amendment has been repealed. Tom and Jerry happily break up the fight and sail home on a raft with oars on the side, as imagery of the U.S. flag and alcohol form out of the rolling waves. One can only imagine that these two colorful characters will be drunk as trunks of skunks as soon as they reach Florida.
The Three Caballeros ends with Panchito Pistoles playing matador against Donald Duck in a bull costume. Joe Carioca lights some fireworks hidden in the costume, providing a stunning pyrotechnic display to end the movie on.
“El Materdor”, part of the Cars spin-off series “Mater’s Tall Tales” has Tow Mater tell Lightning McQueen about the time he fought bulldozers in the arena.
Before the Disney buyout, Fox released two feature films that prominently feature bullfighting in the plot. Jorge Gutierrez’s Book of Life has Manuel, the latest in a long line of bullfighters, refusing to get in the arena. When he gets trapped in the Land of the Dead, he is forced to fight the ghost of all the bulls his family has killed to get back to the living world. Then, Ice Age studio Blue Sky (RIP) adapts Ferdinand as a feature film, with wrestling’s John Cena in the role of the flower-loving bull.
Wowsers! Many, many thanks to all the commenters who read my pieces, and many more for picking up on other cartoons that I did not list/find/fumbled. Dr. Toon thanks you all. This theme is kind of like the ongoing feature” Cartoons at the Bat”, in which posters and contributors dug up every baseball cartoon or reference in the history of animation. What’s cool is that present and future animation historians can get a comprehensive history of bullfighting cartoons, probably nowhere else available.
Mr. Groh, I did not include any TV shows because I wanted to stay in the realm of the theatrical cartoon era. You are indeed correct in that the bullfighting theme found its way into lots of TV toons.
Ay caramba, there certainly were mucho classic cartoons based on bullfights!
What surprises me here is the prevelance of bullfighting as as subject in mid-20th century American cartoons and live-action short comedies (of course, the Three Stooges also got into the act).
Having grown up in the true muticultural melting pot of Manhattan in the 60’s and 70’s and having plenty of Latino classmates in grade school, it seemed to me that bullfighting existed only in these old films. I don’t remember any of my friends who came from Puerto Rico or Mexico or South America ever mentioning it. Not even my best friend, whose parents were immigrants from Argentina. It just wasn’t a sport that had any presence in the U.S. media. Except, I suppose, in the many Spanish newspapers of the N.Y. metropolitan area.
With one exception— the Spanish-language UHF television station that showed live bullfights! Transmitted from Mexico, I suppose. I watched a few, but my complete lack of interest in any kind of sports activities, as I quickly discovered, also extended to bullfighting.
I didn’t know at the time that this “sport,” at least in Spain, inevitably ended with the killing of the bull. So, the young bulls in “Ferdinand” are all suicidal! Just like that inexplicable cartoon commercial star of that era, Charlie the Tuna.
Mexican bullfighting spares the bull’s life— so extended torture is okay, but putting the suffering animal out of its misery ISN’T?
In the words of the late American novelist William S. Burroughs, “Man is a bad animal.”
Ain’t it the truth?
I’ve talked of this topic on my website (in Italian Language) in a two part ranking of all the sound corrida cartoons and I think the two articles and the comments miss Toreadorable with Popeye and Little Pancho Vanilla by Frank Tashlin.
For who’s interested in it here the two link.
https://kingsizeanimationreview.com/corti-corrida-parte-1/
https://kingsizeanimationreview.com/corti-corrida-parte-2/
Glad to see that someone else is interested in this topic of corrida cartoons.
How about I EATS MY SPINACH (1933)? There’s a bullfighting scene during the rodeo!
I can’t help but think that “Throwing the Bull” should have included a scene where Mighty Mouse told his fellow mice that they should stop looking for trouble by setting up fights with bulls, which are much larger than them.
Your synopsis of “Fiesta Time” (1950) doesn’t encourage your viewers to watch it and that’s too bad. So much happens in 30 seconds viewers would be better off slowing the speed to catch all the sight gags. It’s not about “bash.” It’s about what happens before and after “bash.” Like so many of the Famous cartoons, death isn’t the punchline. The punchline occurs after death and, in this case, there’s more than one post-mortem joke. The bull’s corpse buries itself in the arena sand after it bounces off the matador’s cape. Next, the matador is revealed as a dwarf standing on a tombstone and the killing is so pre-meditated the dwarf flicks away his cape to reveal that El Toro’ was carved into the stone. Now let’s consider what happens before this moment of false truth and see how the bull uses his horns. They are brackets he uses them to catch and trap each bullfighter before flinging them out of the ring. The beast celebrates his triumph by removing his horned scalp and bowing before the audience, mimicking a real matador. In his final charge, toro plans to gore his opponent and his horns turn into slashing knives that sharpen themselves. Finally, as the bull drops into his grave we see that his horns were crumpled in the fatal impact. Yes, a lot happens here and I have not even described the dramatic sound effects or how the animators individualized the two incompetent toreros who are the bull’s victims.