Crazy Mixed Up Pup

Crazy Mixed Up Pup is a-typical of the sublimely surreal nature of the animated shorts of director Tex Avery. Oddly it's not quite as well known of his other works which is a shame because it's premise although simple is still wonderfully ingenious and totally off the wall. A married dog owner takes his pet pooch out for a walk, only for the two of them to be run over while crossing the street. The cross eyed paramedic who rushes to the scene mixes up the the blood to give them the necessary blood transfusion, the result being that the man begins behaving like his dog and vice versa. The term Man Bites dog never became more literal as ensuing events unfold.

It's a conceit that is brilliantly utilised as his bemused wife and anyone else who comes in to contact with them struggle to cope with their bizarre behaviour. For a six minute short it manages to cram in just enough jokes and crazy visual humour that by the time it's over, you can't help but want to watch it again. One moment where the dog just out of nowhere begins to dance in front of the freaked out wife is so random that you can't help but chuckling at the insanity of it. It all leads to an equally wacky pay off which rounds everything up quite nicely. If there is a flaw however its that while not dreadful the animation Isn't quite up to the higher standard of some of Avery's earlier shorts. However it's a quibble I'm willing to mainly forgive as it's a testament to his genius that nearly 60 years later it still stands the test of time. Not one to miss if you get the chance to see it.

Too busy reading his grocery list, poor old "Sam" and his dog "Rover" get hit by a car whilst crossing the road. I'm not sure plasma was on their list but some quick action by the medics appears to have muddled it up and so now the dog has human traits and "Sam" goes around on all fours burying bones in the garden and yapping like a maniac. "Maggie" can't make sense of this changed dynamic, especially when "Rover" refuses to eat his tinned dinner from a bowl. The role reversal aspect works quite well here and at the conclusion you don't know whether to feel more sorry for the cat hiding up the tree or the wife - well until she and her poodle meet a similar fate whilst trying to escape the madness. It's got a lively score from Clarence Wheeler and moves along quickly and quite entertainingly.

This one is has a distinct 1950s feel, is very well drawn, and funny to boot. I love the "cuckoo" scene, repeated 3 times, including for the kitten at the end.

Stereotypical 50s homemaker wife with the "screwball element" thrown in for good measure (watch the henpecked husband say "yes dear" in the beginning).

Flattened out cartoons were the best! Loved when the ambulance attendant's eyes went cuckoo. Tex Avery was a genius of awesome animation. His cartoons were the best, funniest, and at times cutest (yes!). And the best part? His characters weren't recurring, unlike Tom & Jerry, Bugs or Daffy, so I never got tired of his, unlike the latter which today I often find downright unwatchable and flip channels.

That's a 9/10 from me for this Tex Avery gem.

This is simply the greatest Tex Avery short animated film I know. And I believe to have seen almost all of them. This is as simple as it sounds: blood transfusion goes wrong, man had dog blood and dog has man blood. The dog acts like his owner, patting the woman's head, the man acts like a dog, chasing birds around and bringing the slippers to his dog. If you analyze the film-making, you can easily realize how much efforts Tex Avery was putting in trying to make his audience laugh every 10 seconds or so. I cannot think of a sequence that isn't funny. The animated sequences of each person's face whenever they are bewildered at the occurrences are simply amazing: very often have I felt bewildered and immediately thought about this sequence, expecting my hairpiece to turn on itself, clock-like cuckoos to pop out of my mouth... The rendering of bewilderment has never been equaled after this. Up to its last plot twist , this film is hilarious. According to me, this cartoon is one of Tex's funniest, and also one of his wackiest.

From its title, I wasn't aware that I had watched this one before – which, despite being a latter-day Avery effort, is every bit a classic cartoon. Again, the premise is simple yet totally insane: a man and his dog are trampled by a car while crossing the road; a cross-eyed male nurse mistakenly applies the wrong kind of plasma to each, with the result that the man takes on the habits of the dog and vice versa. Of course, this sends the wife (and the dog's own 'spouse') up the wall – even if both intermittently revert to their natural states and, obviously, think that it's their respective mates who are nuts! Predictably, then, the ending sees the wife and her pet getting the exact same affliction after being run over themselves by a car – and subsequently revived by the same eager but clueless medical attendant! And they all lived happily ever after