Dumb Patrol
Dumb Patrol | |
---|---|
![]() Title card | |
Directed by | Gerry Chiniquy |
Story by | John Dunn |
Starring | Mel Blanc |
Music by | Bill Lava |
Animation by | Virgil Ross Bob Matz Lee Halpern Art Leonardi |
Layouts by | Bob Givens |
Backgrounds by | Tom O'Loughlin |
Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures Vitagraph Company of America |
Release date |
|
Running time | 6 minutes |
Language | English |
Dumb Patrol is a 1964 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon short directed by Gerry Chiniquy.[1] The short was released on January 18, 1964, and stars Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam.[2] Director Gerry Chiniquy was a longtime animator in Friz Freleng's unit. The cartoon is set during World War I opening 'somewhere in France' in 1917.
The title is an allusion to The Dawn Patrol, a 1930 movie by Howard Hawks that also deals with World War I pilots. The same title was also used for an unrelated, early Looney Tunes short starring Bosko, released in 1931.
Dumb Patrol does not fall into the normal pattern found in most other Bugs Bunny cartoon shorts. Bugs is not disturbed from a serene state as in most of his other shorts. Also, being a military pilot, he is the attacker, reversing his normal role of the victim. Yosemite Sam had previously been killed off in his previous short, Devil's Feud Cake (though because this film is set in the past it can be argued that this does not create an explicit continuity error, although Sam dies at the end of this cartoon as well)
This marks the final pairing of Bugs and Yosemite Sam, as well as the final appearance of the latter, one of the only 3 cartoons to feature both Bugs and Porky together, and the final time Porky appears without Daffy Duck.
Plot[]
In 1917, somewhere in France during World War I, the men of the French Air Force assemble to determine who must rid the skies of the enemy pilot, Baron Sam Von Schpamm. A drawing straws game begins resulting in Porky Pig (addressed as Captain Smedley in this cartoon) selected for the mission. Next day, at dawn, while Porky is suiting up for the flight (whistling Mademoiselle from Armentières), Bugs Bunny knocks him out with a brick and takes his place, because Porky has a family (" . . . a wife and 6 piglets!").
Meanwhile, somewhere in Germany, Sam (Yosemite Sam) is awarded an Iron Cross for his service. Sam, however, is sick of getting those things and wants a well-deserved long furlough. Bugs drops him a bunch of flowers and a poem. Sam reads the note and feels insulted – Bugs has written "Baron" with a small "B" and claims the Big "B" is in the flowers. When Sam looks at the flowers, a bee flies out and stings his nose. Sam has trouble getting his biplane started, but having solved that and taken flight, Sam catches up to Bugs. Bugs pulls up into the clouds. Sam orders him out, but doesn't watch where he's going. He crashes into a mountain.
Sam runs back to the airfield and grabs another fighter plane. While he looks for Bugs, Bugs comes up behind him and buzz-saws right through Sam's plane. In another fighter, Sam starts shooting at Bugs with a machine gun, but Bugs dodges every time. Sam's shooting only ends up shearing his own plane to bits, leaving only the undercarriage which becomes a unicycle when he lands. Sam then takes to the skies in a bomber. Having sighted and targeted Bugs, he releases the bombs, but he falls out of his plane and gets caught in the explosion of his bombs on the ground.
Sam takes to the skies in a small monoplane, which at the push of a lever transforms into a fierce fighting machine quad-plane loaded with engines and machine guns. Sam pulls the switch to full power, but this rips the plane into three parts, making Sam fall and get killed in the ammunition dump. Bugs then comments he has heard of Hells Angels, but he never thought he would actually see one. The final scene then shows Sam in a devil's suit, playing a harp and floating skyward.
See also[]
- List of American films of 1964
- List of Bugs Bunny cartoons
- List of Yosemite Sam cartoons
- List of Porky Pig cartoons
References[]
- ^ Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 346. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.
- ^ Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 60-62. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
External links[]
![]() |
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Dumb Patrol |
- Dumb Patrol at IMDb
- 1964 films
- English-language films
- 1964 animated films
- 1964 short films
- 1960s American animated films
- 1960s animated short films
- Looney Tunes shorts
- Warner Bros. Cartoons animated short films
- American aviation films
- Films set in 1917
- Films set in France
- Films set in Germany
- Military humor in film
- Western Front (World War I) films
- American films
- Films scored by William Lava
- Films featuring Bugs Bunny
- Films featuring Porky Pig
- American animated short films
- Films directed by Gerry Chiniquy
- 1960s Warner Bros. animated short films