The Old Sprung-a-Leak Gag

Anyone care to guess how many times Tex Avery pulled off this gag?



This time, the body-leaking gag comes from “The Hick Chick” (1946). The bad guy with the Charles Boyer voice has stabbed Lem several times with a pitch fork. “Ah, ya didn’t even touch me,” Lem says. Then the gag.

Tex pulled it again in “Garden Gopher” (1950) with Spike and a rake.

The story isn’t one of writer Heck Allen’s best; the ending is unsatisfying because it’s a running gag without a topper. You can see it coming and expect to build to something more. But the fight inside Lem’s clothes has to be unique.

The credited animators in this cartoon are Ed Love, Walt Clinton, Preston Blair and Ray Abrams. Avery and Allen use Red Skelton’s Clem Kadiddlehopper (and Daisy June) as a starting point for the cartoon; I’m not a Skelton fan so Skelton’s catchphrases aren’t any more amusing coming out of animated characters.

It sounds like Pat McGeehan supplying the voice of the Avery Wolf-behaving villain (complete with moustache), Sara Berner as Daisy June and Frank Graham as the bull.