{"id":88819,"date":"2025-01-22T00:01:15","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T08:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/?p=88819"},"modified":"2025-01-22T09:02:01","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T17:02:01","slug":"cartoons-about-cartoons-part-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/cartoons-about-cartoons-part-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Cartoons About Cartoons (Part 19)"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"\n

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Half of our episodes presented today wait until the end of the film to fall into the category of films under discussion – involving custom iris-out gags that defy the plane of existence upon which the characters perform, a few allowing for breaking-the-fourth-wall interaction of character with audience. Two provide for interplay between animator and character. And one allows for character to try his own hand at one of the routine duties of a theater projectionist. All again evidence that these characters know they are on a screen, and stand prepared to use this edge to their greatest advantage. <\/p>\n

\"\"Saved By the Bell<\/strong> (Paramount\/Famous, Herman<\/em>, 9\/15\/50 – Seymour Kneitel, dir.) – The formula was beginning to take shape for what would become the Herman and Katnip series. Katnip had not yet acquired his voice or traditional brown fur – instead, a prototype black cat stands in his place, first seen in a prior episode, \u201cNaughty But Mice\u201d. Herman is this time not a family relative of the mice terrorized by the cat\u2019s attacks, but a door-to-roor salesman of cat bells – with a special introductory offer to provide free installation of the musical alarm around the cat\u2019s neck. Otherwise, the episode is largely indistinguishable from those that followed.<\/p>\n

\tHerman\u2019s first attempt at installation utilizes an auto jack to prop up the head of the sleeping cat, in hopes of tying the bell around the cat\u2019s neck. It fails when the jack lever falls loose from its safety catch, jostling the head of the cat awake. The cat slams the bell over Herman, but sawing sounds within rouse the cat\u2019s curiosity. He lifts the bell to find Herman cutting through the floor with a small saw, and, when caught in the act, Herman bends the saw to slap the cat in the face. An attempt to pin the cat\u2019s neck down with a pitchfork fails to hold. The cat chases Herman into a mousehole, but Herman reappears through a knothole in the floorboards below the cat\u2019s head – another perfect position to toss the bell\u2019s fastening strap around the cat\u2019s neck. Without looking as he tosses, Herman launches the strap through the hole, then catches the other end of it as it falls within reach, tightening the strap with a buckle. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Job done – or so Herman thinks. The clever cat has pulled back, substituting a wooden pole where his neck should have been to take the bell. Herman, hearing no bell, blindly walks right into the cat\u2019s open mouth, using his uvula as a punching bag (a gag borrowed from Tweety Pie in \u201cI Taw a Putty Tat\u201d). He escapes just in time, causing the cat to bite his tongue. Herman gets the cat caught up upon a spinning wagon wheel, then drops a mallet into the cat\u2019s way to knock him out cold. Using a blacksmith\u2019s bellows, Herman fashions a new collar of steel for the bell out of a hot horseshoe, hammering it in place around the cat\u2019s neck. The mice feast in celebration of Herman\u2019s feat, and when the cat awakens and approaches, easily retreat back to their mousehole with grace, forewarned of the cat\u2019s approach. Herman makes ready to take his leave to make further sales elsewhere, but, without explanation, the cat waits outside, somehow having managed to remove the horseshoe collar. He again slams the bell over Herman, and catches him inside, clinging to the clapper. But Herman pulls a final stunt, shoving the bell into the cat\u2019s throat, causing him to swallow it. Now, the cat performs a sort of conga dance, intermittently wriggling his torso in hopeless effort to shake the bell out of his digestive system, and disappearing over the horizon, while Herman, his sales suitcase in hand, dances across the scene in the foreground to the bell music, pausing a moment as an iris begins to close upon the scene, to step through the circle just before it closes. The blackened frame behind him fades in to the Paramount mountain, and Herman keeps right on dancing in the foreground, across the base of the mountain, and out of the scene to the fade out. (This conga ending was likely inspired by the lost ending to Tex Avery\u2019s Lucky Ducky<\/em>, discussed a short time ago in this article series.) <\/p>\n