Detouring America

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 cartoons ever made by anybody. 'Detouring America' is not one of Avery's best but for a travelogue cartoon, or for a travelogue of anything, it doesn't fare too shabbily at all, actually it fares well. It may not be one of his overall funniest or most imaginative, has moments of corniness (not something you find with Avery characteristically) and structurally it's a little episodic, but it's well made and clever.

It is no surprise that, as with a vast majority of Avery's cartoons regardless of the period, the animation is excellent. Beautifully drawn, very detailed and the colours are vibrant. The highlight animation-wise are the different locations brought to remarkably vivid and superbly detailed life.

Carl Stalling's music score is typically lushly and cleverly orchestrated, with lively and energetic rhythms, it's also beautifully synchronised with the action and gestures/expressions and even enhances the impact.

'Detouring America' is really quite funny for a travelogue cartoon and is very clever. Timing is spot on and the narration is suitably sardonic, doing a great job educating and entertaining. Avery directs splendidly and distinctively. Voice acting is very good from both Mel Blanc and Robert C Bruce (who did cartoon narrations better than anyone).

In conclusion, very nicely done. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Back when Tex Avery first did this cartoon, studios regularly produced short subjects in abundance. One of the most frequent and popular types was the "travelogue" which Avery so effectively nails here. The same droning voice-over and cutesy style used here without that big a stretch for parody's sake. Tex Avery sight-gags aplenty. This cartoon spawned a mini-boom in cartoons (not all by Avery) sending up travelogues. As usual, Tex was there first and was the best! One second left on the clock, here comes the alley-oop-it's a touchdown and the band goes wild! Highly recommended.

This was my first look at one of these Looney Tunes "travelogue" cartoon they used to feature here and there in this time period (late 1930s). We go from one city - and landmark - to another with humor - sometimes - going along with the tour. Most times its corny, some times it's clever and some times a little of both.

We start in New York City with the Empire State Building highlighted. Then, to add some humor, we see "The Human Fly" trying to scale the building.

From there, our "guide" (narrator Robert C. Bruce) takes us to West Point to the Everglades where Mel Blanc's famous voice says "ouch!" when he voices a mosquito being slapped, to the rolling plains of Texas where we see a cowpuncher, way up to Alaska....on and on....covering most regions of the USA.

Most of the humor, to be honest, was too corny to be funny and I doubt if I would ever watch this again. Sometimes I amazed people ever laughed at lame material like this.

This cartoon can be seen as a feature addition on the James Cagney.movie DVD, "Each Dawn I Die."

I guess that the reason that I didn't find "Detouring America" as funny as some of Tex Avery's other spoofs is because I've seen so many that I can basically predict what's going to happen based on the narration (by Robert Bruce). But even so, there's no shortage of laughs in this spoof of 1930s travelogues, such as the literally rolling hills. As with many of Tex Avery's spot-gag-centric cartoons, there's something to which the narrator keeps returning; in this case, it's a human fly scaling the Empire State Building (with a surprise at the end, natch).

So, I would actually call this cartoon a mild precursor to "Easy Rider", with the idea of searching for America. Of course, not only is that a very loose connection, but people who came of age in the '60s are probably going to object to my linking a silly cartoon - especially one containing stereotypical images of American Indians - to the ultimate '60s movie. Just my association.

Anyway, a really funny one.