A Day at the Zoo

I'm always amazed and happy to see the corny puns Tex Avery and others like to present in classic-era cartoons. This cartoon is full of them. The scene is a zoo: "Kalama Zoo," where the "blue plate special" is on at feeding time, etc.

The puns keep comin' as we get a tour of the zoo, complete with a ton of "corn" and wisecracks. Some of it, of course, is really stupid but a good number of the puns are funny. We see camels (smoking), greyhounds (a bus), two bucks (deer) and five scents (skunks)." You get the picture. Very corny.

We see birds, too, such as the "Jail Bird" in a cage with a "Stool Pigeon" in the adjacent one. I'm telling you, it's non-stop cornball material ....and a lot of fun. The ending, with the lion and the idiot that was teasing him, was predictable but still humorous and clever.

A nice little set of jokes concerning various animals at the zoo. For example a Rocky Mountain wildcat that is upset for missing a prize on "bank night" (hence his behavior). Or a pair of well behaved elks (who are two gentlemen - obviously members of the "Elks" Lodge - who are greeting each other (and both are named Bill). A monkey is surprised at his resemblance to a man at the zoo, and convinces the zoo keeper that there must be a mistake here. And another monkey gets angry about a woman who disobeys a simple zoo regulation on a sign. There is also a running joke, with overtones of Lou Costello's running tag line on radio "I'm a baaad boy!" dealing with "Egghead" (the predecessor of "Elmer Fudd") and a Lion. An easy to take cartoon. One problem about using the "You Tube" versions (which, for all I know, is true about the quality of the actual cartoons) is that the sound track is not in sync with the cartoon images. Hopefully someone can fix that.

Avery's spot gags tend to be hit or miss. While the idea of coming up with a short with a series of blackout gags centered around a theme without a plot was certainly novel, some of them wear thin after a while. True of any formulaic series.

This energy in this title is really lacking. There are some funny gags, but they come off as too dry. Gil Warren's narration reflects this. Compare to Norman McCabe's WHO'S WHO IN THE ZOO, which is also not a great cartoon, but has much better execution.

There are some interesting pop culture references, which requires the viewer to become well versed in to understand, such as Bank Nite and the bread and butter superstition.

The proto- Elmer again serves as the running gag. As usual, his voice and mannerisms are much different than his other appearances. Here he quotes and sounds like Lou Costello.

I wonder if there were any scenes cut from the blue ribbon release. There's an abrupt cut to black as well as the soundtrack prior to the scene with the rabbits.

Not one of Avery's best shorts. It's public domain status and frequent appearance on unofficial videos in poor quality further reduced its value.

As someone who has always had a fascination with animals, I'm a big fan of this WB short. If I were to work in any occupation that dealt with animals right now, I'd be a biologist. But I surely wouldn't want too be a zookeeper, wrangler nor animal trainer. As long as I don't have to be around them, I'd be happy in some occupation involving animals without me having to be near them. Anyway, this is one of the WB cartoons in which the sight-gags and puns are the main focus/emphasis and another that's so well put together. The parts that I find to be the funniest and my faves are the recurring bits with Egghead constantly taunting the lion, the Alcatraz jailbird and stool pigeon, and the wild cat. If any of y'all like learning about animals like I do, then I highly recommend to watch this one.

nothing surprising. all lovely. because, after decades, the flavor of childhood has the mark of Merrie Melodies, with its silly situations and stupid characters, lessons and show in same package. good entertainment. and a tour at zoo, with the same ingredients of ordinary tour and the legendary Grayhound. so, Merrie Melodies .