Aw, Come On Horsie, Whoa!

You know the gag in Bugs Bunny cartoons where Yosemite Sam can’t get his horse (or camel, or elephant, or whatever) to stop and pleads with it to “whoa”? It originated with the Sheriff Deadeye character on the Red Skelton radio show. But Oswald the Rabbit had an interesting variation on the routine back in the silent days. In “The Fox Chase,” Oswald yells at his horse, with his yelling spelling the word “Whoa.” The letters fly through the air and hang in front of the horse. When the horse ignores them, the ‘A’ develops legs and the word runs in front of the horse. Then the ‘W’ develops hands that push against the horse to make him stop.



There’s no animator credit on the cartoon. The title card reads “A Winkler Production by Walt Disney” but Disney wasn’t drawing anything by then. Reader Devon Baxter says the animator is Ham Hamilton.