Happy-Go-Nutty

Happy-Go-Nutty is a 1944 Screwy Squirrel cartoon directed by Tex Avery. It is the second cartoon in the Screwy Squirrel series.
Plot
Story opens with a plaque on a wrought-iron gate reading "Crackpot County Nut House"; a sign over the gate announces "Moron Manor: Thru These Portals Pass the Screwiest Squirrels in the World." Camera cranes back to reveal a highrise building in the shape of the word "NUTZ."
Inside a cell is Screwy Squirrel, who proceeds to determinedly "escape" through unlocked cell doors and open gates. Breaking the fourth wall, he announces to the audience that he is indeed both crazy and, in fact, Napoleon.
He finds cartoon regular Meathead Dog guarding the gate and inquires "Say, uh, are you the guy that chases the screwy squirrels that bust out of this joint?" The dog answering in the affirmative ("Yup, that's my job, that's what I do...") the gags come thick and fast as the dog chases the squirrel all over the landscape.
A regular gag, seen in several other Avery cartoons, involves the dog's nose detaching itself from the rest of his anatomy and sniffing the ground in another direction. When the squirrel flattens the nose with a mallet, it returns yelping piteously to the dog's face, cowering under loose skin and shivering.
Another gag found in other cartoons, that today would be considered unacceptably offensive, shows the dog victimized by a dynamite trap he set for his opponent—the explosion leaves him in black face, hair in ribbon-tied pigtails, telling the audience in a caricature of an African-American accent, "Uh oh, he done it again!"
After chasing each other through several more minutes of nonstop gags the two discover a "The End" panel, and realize they're at the end of the film. Screwy Squirrel asks the dog, "Just what was the idea of chasing me all through the picture?" The dog replies, "Because you're crazy. You think you're Napoleon. But ya ain't, I am!" Fade out.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu