Swing Shift Cinderella

Let's face it. Tex Avery was a one of a kind director of animated shorts. The best thing that could happen to his career was being fired by Leon Schlesenger at Warner Brothers. This allowed Avery to migrate over to M-G-M to direct a series of frantic, fast paced animated shorts for Fred Quimby. Swing Shift Cinderella was probably the best of the batch (or at least among the best, at any rate). The plot has the wolf tiring of chasing Little Red Riding Hood,only to want to pursue Cinderella (a lounge singer/assembly line worker). As in any Avery short,there is no lack of visual gags (which can run from the truly silly to outright surreal). The short manages to get some good use of mish mashing the whole Cinderella/Little Red Riding Hood plot line (with Hood's grandmother tossed in for good measure). Thankfully, Avery's animated shorts exist on a series of DVD's, for future generations to enjoy (about the only thing will be the countless WWII references and in jokes that will go sailing right over their heads).

The second of Tex Avery's three Red Hot Cinderella cartoons keeps up the pace, as voice artist Sara Bermer seems to voice everyone but the Wolf. The story is that the audience stopped the show for the first one, insisting the theater show the cartoon again. This one certainly keeps up the pace!

There are a lot of contemporary gags that will not have aged well for a modern audience, but with Heck Allen doing the script, there are enough gags to keep you smiling.

The Big Bad Wolf stops chasing Little Red Riding Hood. Instead, he starts chasing Cinderella. Fairy Godmother intervenes. This is a more adult theme cartoon. It's Tex Avery with the Wolf and that happens a lot sometimes. He's a more dangerous Pepé le Pew. I wouldn't mind more expressions from Cinderella but she is basically the super hot Instagram model. This is fun but not necessarily for kids.

Another Tex Avery howling wolf cartoon. It's clever and hyped to the hilt. In this one, the wolf is the object of affection and it is played well. There is the usual eye popping. Since it's wartime, Cinderella is worker for the effort. Well done bits, especially with the Fairy Godmother.

A lascivious wolf stops chasing Red Riding Hood long enough to take part in a Cinderella story--with the heroine a dead-ringer for Bette Davis! This Cinderella, with mascara-circled eyes and a voice dripping with disdain, wants to go to the ball all right, but only because she's the sultry stage chanteuse; her Fairy Godmother has eyes for the wolf herself--but even dolled up in Old Lady Chic, she can't get his attention. Using a particularly expressive style of animation here, Tex Avery gives us a grown-up Cinderella with more curves than the Hollywood Freeway! Jessica Rabbit would envy this bombshell, which makes the tag at the finish line even funnier as Cindy returns to her duty as an aircraft riveter on-board a bus full of wolves. She may have gone back to her working girl roots, but the guys love her anyway.