Pun of the Puny Express

Heck Allen wrote for Tex Avery, so it’s not a surprise an Avery-like joke or two would seep into his work for Walter Lantz.

Much like Avery’s “Lucky Ducky,” Lantz’s “Puny Express” (1950) has a chase interrupted at the side of a road for a sign pun. Woody and his horse skid to sudden stop when they hear a blare of car horns.



Cut to a toad with horns slowly hopping along. He stops, reveals his gag, then resumes hopping.



Pun king Bugs Hardaway co-wrote the cartoon with Allen. They were gone from Lantz by the time the cartoon appeared in theatres. The storyboards were made before a shutdown of the studio in 1948 and this was the first cartoon released after it re-opened. Dick Lundy claimed in a letter to Mark Mayerson he directed it before being let go in the shutdown but there’s no director credit.