Build a Gag, Kill a Duck

‘What Price Fleadom’ (1948) is another of Tex Avery’s cartoons loaded with variations on his standard gags. It’s hard to pick the best one but it’s easy to pick the most bizarre.

Avery would sometime build up a gag, taking one ridiculous thing and piling more on top, ending with something outrageous that has a logical relationship to everything else in the gag. The routine is silly but makes sense in its own context. He’s done it in this cartoon.

The hobo dog (played by Pinto Colvig, I believe) is searching for his flea. He opens up the long beard of a sleeping old-timer. Some little birds fly out. But Avery doesn’t stop there. Ducks fly out. Avery doesn’t stop there. The barrel of the rifle sticks out, fires and shoots down a duck from off-camera above.






Gil Turner, Bob Bentley and Walt Clinton are the credited animators. You can tell that’s Johnny Johnsen’s work in the background. There’s no story credit so either Heck Allen worked on it and was on one of his periodic Quimby firing periods or Tex did the whole thing himself.