Play Safe (1936 cartoon)

Play Safe is a 1936 animated short film produced by Fleischer Studios and released by Paramount Pictures. This film was part of Max Fleischer's Color Classics series.^[1] The film follows the story of a boy who has a dream about being on a real train (and learns a lesson about train safety).^[2]

Plot[]

In the backyard, a little boy, named Little Tim, dressed like an engineer, is reading a book about trains while playing with a toy train. He has a brief thought about what it would be like to operate a real train. At that moment, he hears a real freight train approaching. He opens the gate to see the train stop, and goes to board it, but fails when his dog, Rover, grabs him before he can get far. Still wanting to get a hands-on experience, Tim attaches Rover's collar to a nearby tree and then makes his way toward the train and climbs onboard to the boxcar at the end. Rover frantically tries to get free from the rope, fully aware of the dangers at hand. As the train starts moving, Tim ends up falling off, knocking his head against the rails and sending him into Dreamland.

Upon entering the subconsciousness, Tim finds himself in an enormous train yard packed with odd-looking steam engines. Excited, he looks around and boards a shiny, blue streamliner engine, who is called Montana. Then he hops in Montana's seat, blows the whistle, and pulls the brake lever backward, but starts fiddling with the rest of the valves and levers. Montana starts moving slowly at first, and then at rapid speed. Suddenly, the gauges on the dashboard start scolding the boy to "play safe". Frightened, the boy realizes that the train is going much too fast, and reaches for the levers, but fails when they all disappear before he can grab them. With no way of stopping Montana, the boy finds himself trapped on the runaway engine, who warns him to beware and take care, and passes along the tracks leading around treacherous mountains and into a cavernous tunnel. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a red streamliner, which accelerates as fast as Montana, and is called Red Montana, appears on the same track, heading in the opposite direction. The two engines blow their whistles at one another, regardless of the inevitable collision course. Both train engines scream when they meet face to face.

However, Tim is still not fully awake, and Rover hears another train coming down the tracks. Rover finally manages to break free from his collar, and rushes to the boy's rescue. As the train speedily approaches the boy laying on the tracks, Rover finally manages to outrun the engine. He dips his tail in some red paint and waves it like a flag, hoping to stop the oncoming train. Alas, the engineer doesn't notice, and as the engine runs into Rover, sending him speeding along the tracks toward Tim, Rover grabs the boy in his teeth and pulls him out of danger just as the train speeds right past. Once the train has gone, Rover licks the boy's face to wake him up. Tim happily hugs and kisses Rover.

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