Dangerous Dan McFoo

We first see "Dangerous Dan" and it's not who except to see, but a meek little guy who sounds like Elmer Fudd. In fact, as Mr. Reynolds states in another review here, it IS the voice of Mr. Fudd (Arthur Q. Ryan). The barmaid at the "Malibu Bar" where the action takes place, also is a weird. She looks like Betty Boop, talks like Katharine Hepburn, but is supposed to be Bette Davis. What the.....? Whoever she is, she Dan's girl...but the wolf who just entered the bar doesn't care. He's the obvious villain.

The rest of the cartoon is a boxing match between the two foes, complete with a referee and a very strange way to announce each new round. It was fairly interesting but the very end was lame. The cartoon was a feature in the DVD of the Errol Flynn film, "Dodge City."

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.

Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons.

Also have much admiration for Tex Avery, an animation genius whose best cartoons are animated masterpieces and some of the best he ever did. This is the first of two cartoons he made based on Service's poem, the other being the 1945 Droopy cartoon 'The Shooting of Dan McGoo'. Of the two, there is a preference for the funnier and more imaginative later cartoon, one of Droopy's greatest cartoons and one of the best Avery himself did. 'Dangerous Dan McFoo' is still very good, with not really anything wrong, just that the later cartoon did it better. The story is a little thin and the ending is not as strong as the rest of the cartoon.

The characters all engage and have compelling personalities. They are also very well voiced by some of the most talented voice actors of the time and ever, some, especially Arthur Q. Bryan using immediately unmistakable voices which may be strange at first but is actually effective.

'Dangerous Dan McFoo' is not as imaginative or as hilarious as 'The Shooting of Dan McGoo', but it is still inventive and very amusing.

Tex Avery does a wonderful job directing, with his unique, unlike-any-other visual and characteristic and incredibly distinctive wacky humour style all over it as can be expected. Humour-wise, it's clever and wonderfully exaggerated in typical Avery fashion.

Once again with Avery, 'Dangerous Dan McFoo' is beautifully and brilliantly animated as usual. The character designs are unique, Avery always did have creative character designs, and suitably fluid. The music, courtesy of master Carl Stalling, is lushly and cleverly orchestrated, with lively and energetic rhythms and fits very well indeed and even enhances it.

Summing up, very good if not brilliant like the later 'Dan McGrew'-based Avery cartoon. 8/10 Bethany Cox

I watched this – it was included among the extras on Warners' DVD of DODGE CITY (1939) – as part of a 5-cartoon marathon to commemorate the 100th Anniversary from the birth of one of the most important figures in animation history: Tex Avery. It was actually remade – and considerably improved upon – by THE SHOOTING OF DAN McGOO (1945), a Droopy 'vehicle'; while remarkably similar in many respects to the later classic, one of my favorite Averys, it is a minor (if still highly enjoyable) effort – for one thing, because of an anonymous i.e. less sympathetic protagonist, but also its more primitive quality (Avery's Fred Quimby-produced MGM efforts being generally superior to his stuff at Warners).

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.