Dangerous Dan McFoo

This is a typical Tex Avery short: he takes an idea from anther source (here it's a poem by Robert W. Service, an idea he would use again at MGM), follow the basic concept and toss in every oddball sight gag or joke that could be shoehorned in in the 7 or 8 minute length. An interesting point here is that Arthur Q. Bryan does the voice for the title character, in the voice he would use as Elmer Fudd for a great many years. It really is strange hearing that voice from another character. Good cartoon, although the one Avery did at MGM was just a touch better than this one. Well worth seeking out. Recommended.

I ended up watching this because I picked up the blu ray for Dodge City-a Western from the same year this short was released. It is a funny short in large part because it basically does not have a plot. For such a short film it plays like a series of gags and parodies, i.e. Hepburn. It also had one of the darkest gags I have seen in a Tex Avery short. This short is not a classic by any stretch but if you like early American animation this is a good find.

"Dangerous Dan McFoo" is a Looney Tunes cartoon set somewhere in the frozen North...probably the Yukon or Alaska. The small dog, Dan McFoo, is roughed up by a larger bully dog. Dan has had enough and decides to fight back, as his Katharine Hepburn-like doggy girlfriend cheers him on in the fight.

This is an odd cartoon because Dan is voiced by Arthur Q. Bryan, the same guy who voiced Elmer Fudd. And, Dan sounds EXACTLY like Elmer as well. As for the quality of the cartoon, it's decent...with nice animation and a few laughs. Nothing memorable here but it is enjoyable.

Katharine Hepburn's voice comes out of a Bette Davis lookalike depicted as a gun moll in a western saloon, and Elmer Fudd's voice comes out of DANGEROUS DAN McFOO. Other than that, this is a typical slugfest as performed in most wild west westerns (like DODGE CITY, where this is the featured cartoon on the Warner DVD). The brawl in DODGE CITY is child's play compared to the brawl here, thanks to over-the-top imagination of the cartoonists.

A few funny sight gags are interspersed with the western antics of two gunfighters, one obviously more dangerous than the other, but he ain't "dangerous" Dan.

Amusing, if corny, and filled with all the standard clichés of the western features that would soon dominate the '40s.

A small dog is playing pinball with his friends and his girlfriend when a wolf arrives at the bar out of the cold night. However the wolf tries to hit on Dan's girlfriend which forces him to defend her honour in a impromptu fist fight.

With the `wacky' animation and exaggerated jokes this is the type of cartoon that I like the best. In this case there are quite a few off-the-wall moments that show good imagination but the plot lets it down by giving too few moments to show this humour off. The plot is essentially one fist fight which, while amusing, never offers more than the most basic jokes.

The characters are OK despite not being established faces and they manage to do well even if they are just characters written to be one thing – shy hero, gangster's moll etc. Overall this may not be hilarious but it is still enjoyable with a few good laughs scatter amongst a lot of pretty average material.