Much Ado About Nutting

In one of the Looney Tunes cartoons featuring neither the famous characters nor dialogue, a squirrel unsuccessfully tries to crack open a coconut. No matter what the little guy does, the coconut seems more like a boulder each time. Is every cartoon character doomed to experience something like this?! I will say that "Much Ado About Nutting" (they loved their satirical titles, didn't they?) is far from the best cartoon produced by the Termite Terrace crowd, but any Chuck Jones cartoon is a good one. It's a fun way to pass time. I don't know that it's available on video or DVD, but it is available on the Looney Tunes website.

Chuck Jones's 'Much Ado About Nutting' is a calculated, slow-paced cartoon which ultimately suffers from a weak and overly bizarre punch line. Nevertheless, Jones's genius is amply displayed in the lead-up to this disappointing finale. 'Much Ado About Nutting' follows an urban squirrel's attempts to open a seemingly impenetrable coconut with ever grander schemes, culminating in him tossing it off the Empire State Building. The squirrel is rendered in a more realistic style than the anthropomorphised creatures that populate most cartoons and the story is played out sans dialogue. Jones uses this to his advantage, highlighting the squirrel's growing frustration and obsession for laughs. Indeed, 'Much Ado About Nutting' is at its funniest and most impressive between the punchlines. For instance, the gag at the end of the Empire State sequence is amusing enough but the lead up to it, in which we watch the squirrel agonisingly push the coconut up the thousands of stairs is extraordinarily attractive and tinged with both a sense of suspense and not a little inevitability. 'Much Ado About Nutting' does not quite scale the heights of the truly classic Warner one-shots but it is constantly engaging and occasionally wonderful.

One of my favorite cartoons, it concerns a squirrel trying to crack open a coconut. There is no dialogue. After trying to drop it off a tree and using various tools (including a jackhammer), the squirrel rolls the coconut upstairs to the top of the Empire State Building and drops it off. It knocks a section of the street down several feet, but doesn't crack.

Went back to YouTube and found this Chuck Jones cartoon on it. In this one, a squirrel seems to have a thing for not being able to make up his mind about what kind of nut he's hungry for since he finds peanuts and drops them before eating for walnuts which he dumps for Brazil nuts which he then abandons for a coconut. This coconut is tough to crack despite...Well, just watch this short as you'll get Jones' direction at his best in building from one gag to another until the end when you hear a familiar noise that one usually associates with cartoons directed by Bob Clampett. The way this cartoon is leisurely paced before the split timing of many of the gags makes Much Ado About Nutting one of Jones' underrated masterpieces. So on that note, this short is highly recommended.

Chuck Jones has made a lot of masterpieces, and while Much Ado About Nutting is not among them it is not one to scorn at. The ending did seem a little weak and too bizarre, but everything else was fine. It is a very beautifully drawn cartoon full of vibrant colour and very distinctive of Jones' style. The music is a perfect match to the visuals and gags in character and how appealingly orchestrated it is. Much Ado About Nutting is somewhat leisurely, but the clever gags and the way the simple story is told without any dialogue stop it from falling into the dull-trap. And you'd be hard pressed to find a more adorable animated squirrel, unique for Jones maybe not but irresistible yes. And this cuteness is done without feeling too much. In conclusion, sweet and amusing, not one of the master's best but one of his more underrated ones. 8/10 Bethany Cox