Buddy the Detective
| Buddy the Detective | |
|---|---|
| Looney Tunes (Buddy) series | |
| Directed by | Jack King |
| Produced by | Leon Schlesinger |
| Voices by |
Jack Carr Bernice Hansen Billy Bletcher (all uncredited) |
| Music by | Bernard Brown |
| Animation by |
Paul Smith Don Williams |
| Studio | Leon Schlesinger Productions |
| Distributed by |
Warner Bros. The Vitaphone Corporation |
| Release date(s) | September 15, 1934 (USA) |
| Color process | Black-and-white |
| Running time | 8 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | Buddy's Circus (1934) |
| Followed by | Viva Buddy (1934) |
Buddy the Detective is an American animated short film. It is a Looney Tunes cartoon, featuring Buddy, the second star of the series. The short was released on September 15, 1934, though the date would seem to be in dispute, as one source gives as a date October 17.[1] The short was supervised by Jack King. Musical direction was by Bernard Brown.
Summary
We come to an old house on a barren hill; within sits the Mad Musician at his piano, playing Rachmaninoff's Prelude, Op. 3, No. 2 in C sharp minor. A tree branch climbs through the window, and, at the Musician's magical behest, plays the keys. But the branch's playing of "Shake your Powder Puff" visibly disappoints the Musician, who then plays some more, disappoints himself, and cries out for inspiration, laughing madly: he walks over to a table, taps the bottom of a bottle, and out pops a frog, which the Musician bewitches, as the branch before, into playing. But the frog disappoints his master with a rendition of "Amaryllis", and so happily leaps off of the keys & away into a picture of a pond. The Musician makes a portrait of a man in uniform to play a violin, which the painted figure breaks, to the Mad Musician's further aggravation. The cackling madman stalks about in contemplation.
We come then to a newspaper headline: "Extra! Mad Musician Escapes!" And who should be reading the paper but Cookie? We come back to the Musician, who opens a telephone directory and chooses, at random, a name: who but Cookie at 00 1/2 Cornbread Avenue? The musician calls Cookie, and, over the phone, magically entices her (a tough customer, he admits!) to come to him: Cookie stalks out the door, but Bozo the Dog remains. Bozo sniffs about for a trail and then rushes off to find Buddy. Our Hero sits at home, in a chair, admiring a picture of Cookie. Bozo knocks over Buddy's chair & breaks the frame of the photograph & yelps wildly at Buddy, who, at first, can not decipher what Cookie's pet wants him to know, until Bozo picks up the picture of Cookie: Buddy dons an outfit resembling that of Sherlock Holmes & rushes out the door with Bozo.
Meanwhile, the Musician commands Cookie to play, at the piano, the same prelude that he attempted before, to flawed success: Cookie devolves, to her master's consternation, into a rendition of the jazzy "Hey, Sailor!" Buddy the sleuth finds the house, & burns a rectangular hole in the locked door by shining a flashlight through his magnifying glass. We see that this house is haunted: a gremlin creeps into Buddy's flashlight & spooks Bozo; skeletons creep about, getting themselves water, which passes directly through them, from a water cooler, & opening umbrellas that are, as they, mere skeletons. The dog chases a skeleton into a wall, where it breaks apart. A curtain flies off of an open window as a result of the gust outside & Bozo slips on it into the next room, taking Buddy with him: the dog rushes through a threshold, but Buddy is knocked upwards onto a balcony, from which he can clearly see Cookie when she briefly emerges from a doorway to scream for help. Buddy finds his way over the balcony and knocks on the very door, but the Musician peeks out of a little hole in the top & taunts Our Hero. The door is locked, so Buddy simply picks up a nearby door & drops it next to the one through which he wishes to enter the room. Easily attaining access in this clever fashion, Buddy spies the Musician still standing at the door, unaware of his enemy's entrance: Buddy kicks the Mad Musician in the back side, and a fight ensues! Buddy kicks the villain through the door, which spins about as if on an axis, & flips the Musician back into the room, Buddy, unbeknownst to the evildoer, between his legs. The Musician finds Buddy, but Buddy quickly grabs his opponent's hair and spins him around, freeing him only that he knocks into a wall. Buddy puts a small playing stool on the stunned villain's back and spins the top part that the stool's midsection extends from the Musician's back to the ceiling, thus trapping him on the floor. Cookie, saved, thanks her sweetheart, and begins to play the Rachmaninoff piece, but swiftly changes to the same jazzy piece that she played before & that the villain clearly cannot stand!
The Musician's phone book
In addition to Cookie's name, the names of three Schlesinger employees appear in the Musician's phone directory: R. Clampett, Ben Clopton, & Manny Corral, a cameraman.
Cookie
As is characteristic only of those Buddy cartoons directed by Jack King (though not all of them), Cookie has braided blond hair rather than her typical black.
Dating discrepancy
In keeping with the article Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography (1929-1939), the date here given for the release of this cartoon is September 15; this conflicts with the information given in the appendix of Leonard Maltin's Of Mice and Magic (see references below.) For more on this discrepancy and others, see the Release date discrepancy section of the article Buddy's Circus.
References
- ↑ Maltin, Leonard. Of Mice and Magic: a History of American Animated Cartoons. Von Hoffmann Press, Inc., 1980. p. 406
