''Ace in the Hole'' is the fifth

animated cartoon Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...

short subject A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

in the ''

Woody Woodpecker Woody Woodpecker is an animated character that appeared in theatrical short films produced by the Walter Lantz Studio and distributed by Universal Studios between 1940 and 1972. Woody, an anthropomorphic woodpecker, was created in 1940 by ...

'' series. Produced by

Walter Lantz Productions Walter Lantz Productions was an American animation studio. It was in operation from 1928 to 1972 and was the principal supplier of animation for Universal Studios. The studio was originally formed as Universal Cartoon Studios on the initiative o ...

and distributed by

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...

, the short was released theatrically on June 22, 1942. Like many other animation and film studios in the 1940s, Walter Lantz Productions through its iconic character, Woody Woodpecker, became part of the

war effort In politics and military planning, a war effort is a coordinated mobilization of society's resources—both industrial and human—towards the support of a military force. Depending on the militarization of the culture, the relative si ...

Plot

is at an

U.S. Army Air Corps The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical ri ...

military air base, and is dreaming of taking one of the aircraft up in the air. His enthusiasm in this respect gets him into a lot of trouble with his sergeant. Finally, the sergeant, fed up with Woody's actions in trying to imitate a pilot, throws Woody out of the barracks and into the pilots' quarters. Woody reads a textbook ("How to Fly a Plane From the Ground Up"). In the quarters, he stumbles over a clothes tree and into a flying suit. Woody's attempts to zipper the suit get him into more trouble as he knocks over a box of flares, one of which lands in the collar of the flying suit. Attempting to zipper the suit, Woody mistakenly pulls the pin from the flare, and he is violently projected into the air. The suit swells up and bursts, and Woody floats down by parachute into the cockpit of the

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or by using the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in ...

(the PU-2). The sergeant orders Woody out of the cockpit, but Woody blindly pulls on a lever, and the aircraft takes off so fast that it leaves all the paint including markings and insignia behind. Finally, the sergeant lassos the aircraft, and the jolt yanks him out of his uniform. He climbs up to the cockpit through a bottom hatch, and as Woody opens it, bombs fall into the sergeant's union suit underwear. The result is disastrous for the sergeant. Ultimately, the sergeant, sitting in a wheelchair with a shotgun on his knee, has Woody clipping every horse in the Army.

Cast

* Kent Rogers as Woody Woodpecker, GI Sergeant (uncredited)

Production notes

''Ace in the Hole'' (production #1014) was a World War II era animated short. Some erasure of the penciled title on a production drawing in graphite, reveals that at some point the original title for this was "America's Ace In The Hole". Woody's original design became a little softer in starting with ''Ace in the Hole''. His bucked teeth began to disappear, as Lantz realized this feature was extraneous. In addition, the beak and feet colors became slightly brighter and more vibrant, and his big chin is gone. A number of 1940s

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes airplane, fixed-wing and helicopter, rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as aerostat, lighter- ...

and

aeronautics Aeronautics is the science or art involved with the study, design, and manufacturing of air flight–capable machines, and the techniques of operating aircraft and rockets within the atmosphere. The British Royal Aeronautical Society identif ...

terms were used in ''Ace in the Hole''. The title is a play on the card-playing term "ace in the hole" and the "

flying ace A flying ace, fighter ace or air ace is a military aviator credited with shooting down five or more enemy aircraft during aerial combat. The exact number of aerial victories required to officially qualify as an ace is varied, but is usually co ...

" who would score five victories in a fighter aircraft. The "clipper" was a reference to the famous Boeing Clipper that had recently gone into service with

Pan American World Airways Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United State ...

. Even the fictional "PU-2" bore a striking resemblance to the

Curtiss P-40 Warhawk The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk is an American single-engined, single-seat, all-metal fighter and ground-attack aircraft that first flew in 1938. The P-40 design was a modification of the previous Curtiss P-36 Hawk which reduced development time an ...

fighter aircraft in service with the

United States Army Air Corps The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical r ...

.Church, Harlow. "Film Makers Learn to Share." ''Pittsburgh Press'', January 6, 1943, p. 21.

Reception

''Ace in the Hole'' was the fifth episode of Season 1 of '' The Woody Woodpecker Show'', a "package show" that debuted on ABC on October 3, 1957. The series continued until 1958 on ABC, 1958–1966 in Syndication, 1970-September 2, 1972 on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

, September 11, 1976 – September 3, 1977 on NBC, 1987–1997 in Syndication, and 1997–1998 on

Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, ...

, where it disappeared from television entirely (save for the re-runs on Canada's

Teletoon Teletoon (stylized as TELETOON) is a Canadian English-language specialty channel owned by Teletoon Canada, Inc., a subsidiary of Corus Entertainment. Its name is a portmanteau of "television" and "cartoon". The channel primarily broadcasts an ...

Retro service).

Controversy

In the 1950s, ''Ace in the Hole'' became the focal issue in the controversy that surrounds violence and violent images in the media. The wartime cartoon "became the subject of a famous study on the effects of media violence on children. It would be the first of many, launching a powerful movement." The Walter Lanz cartoon was the subject of a scientific study conducted by researcher Dr. Roberta Siegel. "As the stimulus from which the children’s behavior was subsequently tested, it is regarded as the Experiment (“the E film”) and the musical Iwerks’ Comicolor cartoon ''The Little Red Hen'' (sp) is the Control (“the C film”)." The study, completed in early 1955 by Siegel, was published the next year with the title “Film-Mediated Fantasy Aggression and Strength of Aggressive Drive.” ''Ace in the Hole'' was characterized as an example of extreme cartoon violence. Siegel wrote, "Raw aggression and unrelenting hostility dominate almost every scene of this, the E film.” The children in the study were given the choice of toys to play with including benign objects such as a clay, but also, two rubber knives. The choice of the "violent" toy was linked to watching violent images and started a decades-long controversy of the effects of violent images on children's behavior."Alberta Siegel sets a rubber knife, 1955."
''Cartoon Research'', September 5, 2015. Retrieved: June 16, 2019.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ace In The Hole (Cartoon) 1942 animated films 1942 short films Walter Lantz Productions shorts Woody Woodpecker films Films directed by Alex Lovy American aviation films 1940s American animated films Universal Pictures animated short films Animated films about animals Animated films about birds