The Shooting of Dan McGoo

Tex Avery and Heck Allen transform Robert W. Service's "The Shooting of Dan McGee" into one of Avery's high-speed, gag-filled cartoons.

It's the second time Avery had tackled the poem. He had directed DANGEROUS DAN MCFOO for Schlesinger in 1939. Now, at the height of his powers, with a much larger budget, and the clout of his success with his unit at MGM, he could direct this one pretty much as he wished, with much more risque gags.

Yet, despite this cartoon's brilliance, I pause to wonder why he remade it. This was the year he remade DUMB HOUNDED as NORTHWEST HOUNDED POLICE. Was he running his creative well a bit low, and so redid the movie he had been thinking about for half a dozen years? Never mind. It's a great cartoon.

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. Generally like the Droopy cartoons and the character himself a lot, his best cartoons are classics and among Avery's best. Like his remarkable debut 'Dumb-Hounded', 'The Shooting of Dan McGoo', the second and the better of the two Tex Avery-directed cartoons based on Robert Service's poem, is one of Droopy's best.

For so early on, even with a different name and not quite the character design that one is more familiar with, Droopy's personality is so well established and he has everything that makes him a great character in the first place.

Luckily the Wolf is a very worthy foil, with just as interesting and funny a personality as Droopy. Lou is beautiful and very sensual. Again, 'The Shooting of Dan McGoo' is endlessly inventive and hysterically funny in typical Avery-style cartoon.

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.

Some of 'The Shooting of Dan McGoo' is over-the-top in a delicious way, it is also incredibly clever, imaginatively creative and full of inspired visual gags, play on words and hilariously droll asides and puns. There is enough variety to stop it from being repetitious.

It's 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 Scott Bradley, is lushly and cleverly orchestrated, with lively and energetic rhythms and fits very well indeed.

Voice acting is very good from Bill Thompson, Bea Benaderet, Paul Frees and Frank Graham.

Overall, brilliant, a must for Droopy fans. 10/10 Bethany Cox

It's the murderous town of Coldernell, Alaska. It's a Tex Avery cartoon based on Robert Service's poem 'The Shooting of Dan McGrew'. It's seriously dark with the kiddie hangman's noose. Then Droopy appears. It's Droopy going against the Big Bad Wolf. This is a bit more adult but Droopy keeps it very light. He does get too energetic to close out the short but there is a good reason for that. It's a very fun short.

Using Robert Service's words, we go to the gold rush where people are shooting each other at an alarming pace. The worst of the bunch is Dangerous Dan McGoo. But he has a worthy adversary in Droopy, who never seems to get rattled (as a matter of fact he seems barely alive). It's quite entertaining with on of Tex Avery's beautiful women and all the slapstick one can squeeze into eight minutes.

Dangerous Dan McFoo, a short that Tex Avery directed at Warner Brothers, is re-made here some six years later, when Tex was at MGM. This cartoon is a bit crisper, with better timing, although both are quite good and both unmistakably Tex Avery cartoons. The Robert W. Service poem that serves as the starting point for both is used to much better effect here and Avery had six more years worth of practice honing his timing on his much-loved sight gags. The pacing is better here and it's just a better cartoon. Tex Avery was one of the giants of his field, working at a time when the animated short was significant, at least moreso than it is today. Many of his conventions are still used today. Too bad he didn't really seem to understand his impact while he was alive. From all reports, he felt that he'd been largely forgotten and had done little that would last. The work remains, but like most truly funny men, his personal life was a less than happy one. Excellent cartoon. Well worth seeking out. Most highly recommended.