Slap Happy Lion

When director Tex Avery left Looney Toons to work at MGM, there was a marked change in his work. Suddenly, his cartoons had an insanity to them that set them apart from his peers....and his MGM films are classics. Just watch "Swing Shift Cinderella", "Bad Luck Blackie" or "Little 'Tinker" and you'll see what I mean...he was responsible for the strangest, funniest and most surreal cartoons of his age. However, compared to these bizarro films, his "Slap Happy Lion" is amazingly normal.

The story begins with a lion being carted from the zoo to the booby hatch. Then a small mouse explains what brought the lion to this point....and the short consists of this same mouse terrorizing the lion...much like Jerry the Mouse terrorizes Tom the Cat.

This is a good film despite its lack of weirdness. Worth seeing.

This cartoon is a prime example of Tex Avery's brilliance and how producer Fred Quimby could pick'em. Slap Happy Lion show's us how too much confidence can run short to the unlikeliest of foes. Avery delivers gag after gag with the goofiest lion flexing his king of the jungle muscles with roaring laughter. This is truly one of the reasons why I've always been a fan of vintage cartoons from the MGM studios in a time when shorts such as these were seen only at the theater. A true hidden treasure of the Avery archives...8 out of 10.

Slap Happy Lion can also be found appropriately as a special feature on the classic Thin Man series finale "Song of the Thin Man" on DVD.

Just watched this Tex Avery cartoon on YouTube in which we see a lion in a wheelchair seeming a little docile. When he and the one pushing him pass a mouse, that mouse tells his story in flashback of when that lion used to roar real loud in the jungle and scare every animal. Then this same mouse came along...Boy, the way Avery milks all those scare gags, one after another, with constant visual expressions that go in places that made him one of the wildest of the animators during the wildest of cartoon decades: the '40s. Describing it truly won't do it justice, you just have to watch this thing like you would any Tex Avery of this period. So on that note, I highly recommend Slap Happy Lion.

Brilliance need not be complex. In what is a series of sight gags, the audience is introduced to a lion that is crazy and the mouse that knows why. And that is all you need. Know what? It works. Tex Avery hits the viewer with absurd image after absurd image until he blasts it all apart with even sillier images. The short follows its own mad logic and creates a beautiful internal consistency. Ostensibly, the plot concerns a lion that used to be king of the jungle and is now rendered into a raving madman, or mad-lion. We know this because for six minutes, we're treated to crazy tableaux after crazy tableaux of the lion demonstrating his power and then falling prey to the very strength he used on the world around him. But that's the over-analyzed version. The real version is that funny things happen. And that's all that is needed to get the viewer to laugh- simple brilliance. The short is available on the 'Song of the Thin Man' DVD. Treat yourself.

Slap Happy Lion (1947) is another short from cartoon king Tex Avery. In this short, a mouse is the only creature in the jungle who'll stand up to the king of beasts. The lion scares the hell out of every creature in his domain except some dumb mouse. This troubles the lion who tries to do everything he can to teach this mouse a lesson.

A bizarre animated short from Tex Avery. Not only is the story crazy but the visuals and sight gags are outrageous and over the top. Another winner from the man!

Highly recommended.

A+