Monday, April 10, 2006

The Rare and Unknown : " Dingbat Land "

This 1949 Terrytoon extravaganza presents Gandy Goose and Sourpuss in search of the rare Dingbat ( the influence of " Porky in Wackyland " is obvious ), a wacky bird clearly inspired to the Dodo in the original Clampett cartoon and to both Disney's Aracuan bird and the early Daffy Duck of the Thirties .

Reading on a book of this mythical beast , Gandy and Sourpuss agree to go hunting for him . Because they do not know where this rare bird could be , they go in the only place where they know the bird is : right into the book !

So , our heroes found themselves in a jungle . They ask informations about the Dingbat to the Dingbat himslef ! To show to the boys how a Dingbat looks like , the wacky bird shoots a photo of himself and presents it to them !
Then a crazy hunt begins ! The bird rides an invisible motorcycle or an invisible horse , tricks the boys with all the wacky gags that someone could suppose , performs even some classic cartoon routines ( as when he puts an apple on his head to play William Tell with Sourpuss and then he trows it right in his face ! ).

As you can see from yourselves the majority of the negative events in this cartoon happen to poor Sourpuss . As a matter of fact , some reissue of the cartoons were titled " Sourpuss in Dingbat Land " . In this cartoon our Jimmy Durante -like feline friend is in fact the one playing the lead role , Gandy just goes with him ,even if the series is officially the Gandy Goose one . This happens in the majority of the cartoon starring the duo .

After another series of wacky events , the duo finally find the way to go outside the book , then Sourpuss , considering Gandy responsable for everything that happened ( a là Oliver Hardy 's " Here's another fine mess you got me into ! " ) , hits him with a big hammer . However , the Dingbat followed the boys in the real world ! He pops out from Sourpuss' hammer and , with another hammer , hits the cat on the head .

Enojy some pics from this unusual Terrytoons production and let me know your thoughts about it !















































Yours Truly ,

Duck Dodgers

Blog Founder and Administrator