La Tórrida Caperucita Roja

Got to be the funniest and fastest Avery cartoon there is, the best "modern" slant on the red riding hood story, with the wolf lusting after Red Hot at every opportunity. Note the reference to the wartime car tyre shortage with the line...."I can even get you a set of white wall tyres!" I,ve seen the 'toon loads of times and it always never fails to make me laugh long and loud. Working as a projectionist in the cinema I have also shown the toon, and on examining the print it is really noticeable that many frames have been cut out when "Red" makes an appearance. Enjoy the toon!

Tex Avery's first excursion into animated sexual frenzy is his best, ranking as one of his three greatest cartoons (the other two, in case you're wondering, are "Who Killed Who?," also 1943, and "King-Size Canary," 1947). Although Avery would explore this theme in five more cartoons (or six or seven, depending on whether you want to count "Big Heel-Watha," 1944, and/or "Little 'Tinker," 1948; your call), none of them quite reach the heights of the original. (At least not in overall effect: Tex's single most outrageous gag of this sort is in the long legally undistributed "Uncle Tom's Cabana," 1947, and involves a cash register hidden under the aroused male's coat. Nuff said!) Some have suggested that having the Wolf's pursuit by Grandma follow the raging libido scene was a mistake in pacing, but it all works for me. It's too bad Avery didn't complete the opening misdirection by having the FIRST title card read "Little Red Riding Hood," but it goes by so quickly, and is drawn so conservatively that it doesn't really hurt. Besides, is there a context in which this film could be realistically expected to be shown where the audience would be truly surprised when it doesn't turn out to be a straight version of the fairy-tale?

Once upon a time, little red riding hood... The characters are fed up with the same old story. The narrator agrees to tell it in a new way. It's a Tex Avery animated short. It's good alternative fun with some adult leanings.

Tex, sex, and Avery Rex!! The king of cartoons sends the 1943 censors a message..when the armed forces actually bypassed the Hays office to get an uncensored version of this one off to our troops overseas, they preserved one of the greatest works of art ever committed to celluloid..and allowed resonances to echo into such disparate results as Jessica Rabbit, Cool World, and Ren and Stimpy. For the record, the plot is simple..the old fairy tale is worn out, and needs some new blood..the wolf is now really a wolf, and Red has more than goodies in her basket..now, go and watch this one three hundred times, and you'll see almost all the little jokes lovingly crafted into it..

Actually, my comment for this should truly be a simple verbal genuflection, but that wouldn't be of acceptable minimum length here, so I'll actually say something.

This is Tex Avery's masterpiece in terms of the relation of his work to animation in general and the short form in specific. There are better cartoons (some even by Avery himself) and there are cartoons that I personally like better, but in terms of what Avery was attempting to do with the form, in terms of what animation was at the time and had been in the past and what its potential was for the future and the impact that Avery had and would have on his artform, this is the first truly successful Avery cartoon on all terms, both Avery's and animation. Avery blew out the valves, cranked up the engine and blew the doors off on this one for the first (but not last) time here. He turned everything up a few notches here, gang, and it works! It worked then, it works now and will work tomorrow, precisely because Avery had that most overworked and little understood word-genius. Remarkable cartoon and if you like animation and haven't seen this one, what are you reading me for? Go watch this. This is a great piece of work. Need I add, most highly recommended?