''Aviation Vacation'' is a 1941

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...

Merrie Melodies ''Merrie Melodies'' is an American animated comedy short film series distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It was part of the ''Looney Tunes'' franchise and featured many of the same characters. Originally running from August 2, 1931, to Septem ...

'' theatrical short directed by

Tex Avery Frederick Bean "Tex" Avery (; February 26, 1908 – August 26, 1980) was an American animator, cartoonist, animation director, director, and voice actor. He was known for directing and producing animated cartoons during the golden age of America ...

, with story by Dave Monahan and musical direction by

Carl Stalling Carl William Stalling (November 10, 1891 – November 29, 1972) was an American composer, voice actor and arranger for music in animated films. He is most closely associated with the ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Melodies'' shorts produced by War ...

. The cartoon was released on August 2, 1941. This is one of the cartoons that Warner would occasionally produce that featured none of its stable of characters, just a series of gags, usually based on outrageous stereotypes and plays on words, as a narrator (voiced by Robert C. Bruce) describes the action.

Plot

A small airplane takes its passengers on a world tour. Some excerpts: *The plane, as well as its shadow, are remarkably flexible. The plane takes off like a bird, running and jumping and flapping its wings. The plane's shadow, seen from above, dodges ground-level obstacles. *The plane passes

Mount Rushmore The Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a National Memorial (United States), national memorial centered on a colossal sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore (, or Six Grandfathers) in the Black Hills near Keystone, South Dak ...

, which is seen to also include the two major candidates from the 1940 election,

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

("For Democrats") and

Wendell Willkie Wendell Lewis Willkie (born Lewis Wendell Willkie; February 18, 1892 – October 8, 1944) was an American lawyer, corporate executive and the 1940 History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican nominee for president. Willkie appeale ...

("For

Republicans Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

"). *In Ireland, an Irish tenor (in

rotoscoping Rotoscoping is an animation technique that animators use to trace over motion picture footage, frame by frame, to produce realistic action. Originally, live-action film images were projected onto a glass panel and traced onto paper. This pr ...

) sings " When Irish Eyes Are Smiling", while a (cartooned) stray hair keeps appearing in the frame, as if stuck in the projector. The Irishman abruptly stops singing and yells at the top of his lungs to the projectionist,'' "Hey, you, up there! Get that hair out of here!"'' This joke was later reused in Avery's cartoon ''

Magical Maestro ''Magical Maestro'' is a 1952 American Animation, animated short film, short comedy film directed by Tex Avery and produced by Fred Quimby for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio, MGM Cartoons. Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the short was r ...

(1952).'' *At the darkest interior of "Darkest Africa", natives are listening to jungle drumbeats which are used for communication. One native asks another what the drums are saying, and the second native (illustrating the age of this kind of joke), responds, "Boop-ditty, boop-ditty, boop-boop-de-boop!" *Also in Africa, a native is using a blowgun, and is revealed that he was merely aiming at a practice target. His target calls him a "terrible shot". *A group of ostriches hide their heads in the sand. Another ostrich arrives, perplexed, wondering where everyone went. *A series of cocoons opens up, all of them producing beautiful butterflies, except for a weak and scrawny one: "Well, I've been sick!" *The cartoon ends with the plane lost in fog while returning to New York City. When the fog finally clears, the plane is discovered to be attached to a carousel ride, and as it circles, "

The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" is a song written in 1937 by Cliff Friend and Dave Franklin and published by Harms Inc., New York. It is best known as the theme tune for the ''Looney Tunes'' cartoon series and ''Merrie Melodies'' reissued carto ...

" is playing. In this unique instance for a WB cartoon, the ''

Looney Tunes ''Looney Tunes'' is an American media franchise produced and distributed by Warner Bros. The franchise began as a series of animated short films that originally ran from 1930 to 1969, alongside its spin-off series ''Merrie Melodies'', during t ...

'' theme segues into the ''Merrie Melodies'' theme at the fade-out.

Notes

When

MeTV MeTV, an acronym for Memorable Entertainment Television, is an American broadcast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. Marketed as "The Definitive Destination for Classic TV", the network airs a variety of classic television progra ...

aired the cartoon on June 3, 2022, the scenes with African natives were not shown. A watermark free version of When Irish Eyes Are Smiling showed up on YouTube on March 17, 2022.

References

External links

* {{Tex Avery Merrie Melodies short films Warner Bros. Cartoons animated short films 1941 films 1940s English-language films American aviation films Films directed by Tex Avery 1941 comedy films Films scored by Carl Stalling 1940s Warner Bros. animated short films English-language short films 1941 animated short films

Plot

Notes

See also

References

External links