Bad Luck Blackie

This Tex Avery effort is virtually a crash course-pun intended-on how to make a Tex Avery cartoon. Take a wholly unsympathetic villain (in this case, a bully), add a victim ( a cute little kitten), show the bully in action and then set up a means for the bad guy to get what they deserve and then some, making certain that there's room for roughly 5,306 sight gags along the way. Tex Avery created or helped develop Bugs Bunny, Droopy, Screwy Squirrel and Chilly Willy, to name a few. Many of his cartoons centered around that basic outline, with some variation. Sight gags, sight gags and more sight gags. Most recommended.

This is perhaps Tex Avery's best cartoon, and it's because it has something one would not think of looking for in a cartoon, let alone one by Avery. That secret ingredient is logic. Yes, logic. This is a very logical cartoon, not because it presents realistic action (it certainly does not), but because the action - unreal as it is - follows a logical progression, and it's all the funnier for it. The cartoon has a very simple concept: a white kitten, harassed by a guffawing bulldog, hires the services of Bad Luck Blackie. With one blow of a whistle, Blackie crosses the bulldog's path and gives him bad luck - i.e., something drops from the sky and hits him on the head. The entire film is comprised of variations of this simple scenario, normal procedure for Avery. But rather than merely repeat the gag ad nauseam, Avery builds up the situation to a crescendo of outlandishness. With each scene, the objects become larger and more unlikely - from a simple flowerpot, to a piano, a lit bomb, a fire hydrant, and on and on until...let's just say that Avery doesn't stop at the proverbial kitchen sink. The dog tries to stop Blackie by any means necessary - good luck charms, setting traps - but always he succumbs to the inscrutable logic of the situation; whenever the whistle is blown, Blackie passes by and the dog gets conked. No matter who blows the whistle, no matter where the dog is, the result is always the same: whistle=black cat=conk! Finally, the dog gets the upper hand by applying some logic of his own. If a black cat causes bad luck, painting the cat white negates the effect, and that is just what he does. Unfortunately, the reverse is also true, so the kitten paints himself black and saves his hero and gets revenge on his tormentor at the same time. Anyone else would have ended the cartoon right then and there, but Avery gives us one more twist, one that is ridiculous, yet still in keeping with the logic established early on. (Think Pavlov) If this film teaches us anything (besides being kind to kittens and beware of black cats) is the importance of logic in cartoons. Avery isn't merely laying one gag after another. He is developing the situation, letting it build naturally to a satisfying conclusion. He sets up rules for his characters to follow and bends them without breaking them. The result may be irrational, but it is never illogical, and it's funny as hell.

This short from 1949 was included from the early "Tom and Jerry" series the episode called "Bad Luck Blackie" was one of Tex Avery's best. The short was smart and clever. As the story moves with logic and makes sense and with a typical cartoon it has chase and action, it just doesn't have Tom cat or Jerry mouse in it. The story involves a bullied and tormented kitten who just can't escape the paws and jaws of a big unique laughing bulldog. Only things change when little kitty finds the services of a black cat named "Bad Luck Blackie". And on the side the trick is a piece of equipment that the cat carries that is a little whistle and with one blow the black cat crosses the big bulldog's path to save the day for little kitty. Things that drop from the sky to punish the bulldog are simple to far out from a flowerpot, to bigger items like a piano, a bomb and other things. The only short and slim luck the dog has is some white paint only the little kitten has learned the game and outsmarts the big dog! Really this short stayed true to the old myth of being aware and scared of crossing black cats. Overall well done short that's enjoyable and teaches a superstition like themed message!

It's a classic Tex Avery cartoon -- what, again?! -- in which a large, mean dog torments a small cat, until the latter is approached by a black alley cat, who offers to bring bad luck to the dog by crossing his path whenever the small cat blows a whistle. The gags consist of the variety of increasingly absurd ways the black cat enters and exits the frame, and the increasing large objects that fall from the sky onto the victim. They start with flowerpots, and end up battleships.

It's a nicely graded assortment of gags, increasingly odd and immense, that makes this Avery cartoon simultaneously standard and so very funny.

There's a lesson to be learned here..but who cares? Don't mess around with the little cat, Spike..even after the bad luck inherent in the noir feline is negated by a dousing of white paint, fate learns to associate bad luck with a whistle..larger and larger objects come into contact with Spike's noggin, and though most would be daunted by the repeated application of anvils, safes and the like to their cranium, this cretinous canine continues causing chaos throughout the film..to the audience's glee.