A Cartoonist's Nightmare
| A Cartoonist's Nightmare | |
|---|---|
| Looney Tunes series | |
 Screenshot | |
| Directed by | Jack King |
| Produced by | Leon Schlesinger |
| Music by | Bernard Brown |
| Animation by |
Paul Smith Don Williams |
| Studio | Warner Bros. Cartoons |
| Distributed by |
Warner Bros. The Vitaphone Corporation |
| Release date(s) | September 21, 1935 (USA) |
| Color process | Black and white |
| Running time | 7:31 |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | Buddy the Gee Man |
| Followed by | Hollywood Capers |
A Cartoonist's Nightmare is an episode of the animated cartoon series Looney Tunes. It stars Beans the Cat in his first solo film.
Plot
It is closing time at an animation studio and all the staff members are calling it a day. Meanwhile, an animator chooses to carry on with his work while a custodian keeps on watch. In his drawing, he sketches a dungeon scene where Beans the Cat encounters a goblin. Weary for working several hours continuously, the animator decides to take a little snooze. Before ending the session, he draws a steel barricade between the two characters to prevent the goblin from reaching Beans. Suddenly, the goblin comes to life and pulls him into the drawing. The goblin carries the animator away, heading somewhere beyond the scene.
Shocked and terrified, the animator tries in vain to break out of the goblin's grasp. He is then brought into a mystic chamber where painted portraits of various villains are displayed on the walls. The villains happened to be the animator's creations as well as those of his colleagues. They too come to life and emerge from their illustrations. As revenge for how he and other cartoonists made them get subdued in the end of each film, the villains give the animator a pencil and force him to draw a deep pit in the floor where they toss him inside. Upon falling in, the animator holds onto a branch, trying to avoid being devoured by the crocodile at the bottom.
Back at the scene still being worked on, Beans still stands behind the barricade, boredly waiting for his artist to come back. Just then, Little Kitty comes to him, offering a lunchbox. Beans is expecting food but is a little surprised to find a saw in the bread. He uses it to cut his way out of the metal fence. Finally freeing himself, he goes around to find his animator.
In no time, Beans finds the chamber where his animator is being tormented. To intervene, he hurls a boot at the goblin, luring the villains away as they try to capture him. Beans manages to lose them somehow when he returns to the place to rescue the troubled man. The animator then receives a pencil from Beans and draws a ladder to climb out the pit. When the villains return, Beans squirts grease from a grease gun between the room's entrance and the pit. The villains slide on the grease mess and fall into the hole, except for the goblin, who attempts to escape from the hole, but is punched by the angry animator into it. To vanquish them for good, the animator removes the hole with an eraser. Beans and the animator shake hands for a work well done.
It turns out what the animator went through was merely a dream as he was awaken by the custodian. To his relief, he finds the drawing on his desk unchanged. Not wanting to recall his experience, the animator erases the goblin and the steel barricade, leaving only Beans in the picture. As a compliment to his little friend, he draws a platter with gelatin on top for Beans to eat.
Availability
External links
- A Cartoonist's Nightmare at The Big Cartoon DataBase
- A Cartoonist's Nightmare at the Internet Movie Database
- A Cartoonist's Nightmare on the Internet Archive