Digne dindon

Jerky Turkey (1945)

*** (out of 4)

The pilgrims land on Plymouth Rock and soon after one wants to catch a turkey for his family's dinner. The big-nosed, large-belly Pilgrim goes out into the woods and finds a turkey but it's not going to be easy to catch him. This Tex Avery short is a pretty good one that features a couple memorable characters going through various violent things that these MGM shorts always seemed to feature. There are several funny gags to be seen here including one that has Plymouth Rock actually being a rock looking like a turkey. Another funny gag deals with a bear walking around advertising for people to "Eat at Joe's." I found both the Pilgrim and the turkey characters to be quite good and memorable. They have a good comic timing against one another and I thought they helped make the action go by at a quick pace. The animation is nice and certainly helped the film as well.

It's the first Thanksgiving, as imagined by Tex Average and his screenwriter Heck Allen, as Bill Thompson voices a Puritan who hunts a Jimmy Durante-voiced bird for the feast.

I enjoy this as much as I do every Avery cartoon I see, but I wonder if it's aged out of consideration for younger people. Not only is memory of Durante fading even among older people, but there are a lot of jokes that reference World War II minutiae; Henry Kaiser's shipyards, gas-rationing stickers, and so forth.

Still, Avery fills this with his usual assortment of gags, big and little, old and new (at the time this came out; almost eighty years later, they're all old), and if one joke doesn't connect, they next thirty-five in the following minute likely will.

The Pilgrims land on Plymouth Rock. One Pilgrim goes hunting for a turkey. One turkey has a fun time pranking the Pilgrim. It's a surprising takedown of the Pilgrims. It's a more adult MGM cartoon from Tex Avery in the sense that the jokes are hitting older. There are political jokes. I don't even understand how Plymouth Rock is a chicken. Is that a brand of chicken back in the day? Oh! It's a breed of chicken. How many kids would know that? How many adults would know that? I don't mind a lot of this, but it's often flying at my head if not over my head. Are they really saying that the Pilgrims are leading an invasion force to the New World? Otherwise, I do really, really like the ending. It's a fitting ending since I don't really care about either character.

Consider pilgrims standing in line waiting to be passed their weekly ration of ... cigarettes? Then consider a pilgrim not wanting to stand in line, and goes to the black market to get hold of a turkey. This one he meets after having called by a lure-whistle, that sounds: "HEY, TURKEY!!" - However, the turkey and the pilgrim are both caught up by the owner of Joe's Diner...

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. 'Jerky Turkey' was made during Avery's finest period where he made some of his best ever cartoons. While it is not quite one of my favourites from him, there are cartoons of his that are a little more imaginative and took more risks, 'Jerky Turkey' is exceptionally well done. Very well made and a lot of fun and having a Jimmy Durante-sounding turkey just added to the cartoon's delicious strangeness.

It is no surprise that, as with most of Avery's cartoons regardless of the period, the animation is excellent. Very rich in colour, the backgrounds have meticulously good detail and the character designs are distinctively Avery in style and are fluid in movement. The music, courtesy of Scott Bradley, is typically lushly and cleverly orchestrated, with lively and energetic rhythms and fits very well indeed, even enhancing the action.

Can't fault Avery, whose unmistakable and unlike-any-other style is all over, nor the dynamic voice acting and the very engaging characters (the turkey and the bear are hoots).

'Jerky Turkey' has a lot of gags and they are never less than very funny, a highlight being with the bear. The voice acting is very good.

Overall, great. 9/10 Bethany Cox