A Day at the Zoo

A Day at the Zoo is a 1939 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon supervised by Tex Avery.[3] The short was released on March 11, 1939 and features Egghead, an early version of Elmer Fudd.[4]

A Day at the Zoo
A Day at the Zoo
Directed bySupervision:
Fred Avery
Produced byLeon Schlesinger
Story byMelvin Millar
Bob Clampett (uncredited)[1]
StarringMel Blanc
Danny Webb (both uncredited)[2]
Narrated byGil Warren (uncredited)[2]
Music byMusical Direction:
Carl W. Stalling
Orchestration:
Milt Franklyn (uncredited)
Edited byTreg Brown (uncredited)
Animation byRollin Hamilton
Uncredited animation:
Virgil Ross
Rod Scribner
Sid Sutherland
Paul Smith
Effects animation:
A.C. Gamer (uncredited)
Backgrounds byJohn Didrik Johnsen (uncredited)
Background supervisor:
Art Loomer (uncredited)
Production
company
Leon Schlesinger Studios
Distributed byWarner Bros. Pictures
The Vitaphone Corporation
Release date
  • March 11, 1939 (1939-03-11)
Running time
7 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Plot

This is one of the cartoons that Warner Bros. would occasionally produce in the late 1930s and early 1940s that was centered around a series of gags, usually based on outrageous stereotypes and plays on words, and topical references, as a narrator (Gil Warren[2]) describes the action in a rapid-fire succession of anthropomorphic behavior, pun gags, or any combination thereof.

In this cartoon, the unifying thread is a visit to the zoo and the various animals therein: a wolf in his natural habitat (standing next to a door, a play on the phrase "wolves at the door"), a pack of camels (smoking Camels), a North American Greyhound (the bus, not the dog breed), "two bucks..." (white-tailed deer) "...and five (s)cents" (five skunks), two friendly Elks, monkeys who toss peanuts to their spectators, a baboon that convinces the zookeeper to switch the baboon's place with a similar-looking human onlooker, another monkey that scolds an old lady for defying the order not to feed the monkeys, a groundhog (and his separately housed shadow), another skunk gag in which the skunk (with its onlookers in a circle a considerable distance away) is seen reading How to Win Friends and Influence People, a giraffe that is fed its meal of corn by way of a ladder, white rabbits that multiply via adding machines, an owl (and the obligatory "hoo/Who" gag), a "South African talking parrot" that eschews crackers for "a short beer," an "Alcatraz jailbird" who insists he is innocent alongside a stool pigeon that insists the jailbird is guilty, an ostrich laying a large egg that, when she stumbles, cracks and reveals a dozen chicken eggs, an elephant new to the zoo without his trunk because it got lost in luggage on the way there, pink elephants left over from last year's New Year party, two panthers in their cage as they say 'bread and butter', a former circus performer reading a newspaper who used to perform as a lion tamer before (as he puts the newspaper down he reveals a lion bit off his head), and a Rocky Mountain wildcat (gone wild because he had won a sweepstakes on "bank night" that he was required to be present to win, and he wasn't there).

The running gag in this cartoon involves Egghead, who is repeatedly seen taunting a lion in its cage. The narrator repeatedly warns Egghead to stop, at which point Egghead shies away and admits (in a Lou Costello impersonation) "I'm a ba-a-ad boy" before eventually returning to his taunting. In the end, the lion is seen at peace; when the narrator presumes Egghead learned to leave the lion alone, the lion shakes his head in disagreement, opening his mouth to reveal Egghead swallowed whole.

Notes
  • A remake/sequel, Who's Who in the Zoo, would follow in 1942, with Porky Pig as the zookeeper.
  • The final scene in this cartoon would be alluded to a decade later in Hare Do, in which Elmer Fudd (which evolved from Egghead) is swallowed up by a lion as part of the closing gag. Egghead's next and last cartoon, Believe It or Else, is a parody of Ripley's Believe It or Not!
  • This cartoon was re-released into the Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodies program on November 8, 1952.
  • Mel Blanc voiced Egghead and the animals and Danny Webb voiced the other Elk named Bill, Owl, Jail-Bird and the Second Panther. Both voice talents were uncredited.[2]
  • Through eBay auctions in 2007, the original titles have been found for the cartoon, but it is unknown if they have been acquired for future video releases.[5]
  • This cartoon's 28-year copyright period in the United States expired in 1967 due to United Artists, the copyright owners to the pre-1948 cartoons at the time, failing to renew the copyright in time.

See also

References
  1. "News From ME - Mark Evanier's blog". www.newsfromme.com. Retrieved November 21, 2020.
  2. Hartley, Steven (January 1, 2013). "Likely Looney, Mostly Merrie: 236. A Day at the Zoo (1939)". Likely Looney, Mostly Merrie. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
  3. Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 85. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.
  4. Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 77–79. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  5. "WARNER BROS. TITLES". www.cartoonresearch.com. Retrieved March 3, 2020.
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