Release Date:

June 6, 1942

Main Character(s):

None

Summary:

Spot gags on people and their hobbies.

That’s Not All, Folks:

This is McCabe’s first cartoon to be a one-shot. And Porky still appears in the intro, despite not appearing in the cartoon.

The scene with Professor Blooper and his invisible instruments can be heard on The Carl Stalling Project Volume 2. In addition, the music of the scene introducing him was also used at the start of the main menu music for the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volumes 3-6 before it then transitions into the opening music for “You Ought to Be in Pictures”, although as of this writing, this particular cartoon has not yet been put out on disc.

This is the first cartoon where Kent Rogers does an impression of British actor Richard Haydn, in this case during the magician scene. Rogers would also use this voice for the scientist Professor Canafrazz in “Super Rabbit” (1943) as well as the murder victim in Tex Avery’s MGM cartoon, “Who Killed Who” (1943).

What I Like About This One:

“Orville Scutter” is obsessed with boats- he has a ton of model boats built and is shown imitating a captain rowing a makeshift boat (animated by Cal Dalton).

“Prentiss Slimp” has a huge garden of cacti. We don’t see him, but we do hear him rustling through them in pain.

“Herbert Strongfort” only eats raw carrots and although it’s a key part of his iron strength, he has grown a pair of rabbit ears and rabbit teeth as a result.

Amateur magician “Professor Chuckney Gigglezwick” attempts to make a goldfish (as well as the fish bowl and the cloth covering it) disappear but ends up making himself disappear! We then see Gigglezwick’s head inside the fish bowl with an irritated expression on his face as he criticizes his headless and limbless outfit, “A fine magician YOU are!” (animated by Dalton).

The hobby of “Professor Blooper” is imitating musical instruments. Talking in Mel Blanc’s actual voice (another piece of trivia there), Blooper plays one each: violin, slap bass, piccolo, and trombone before doing all at once. The full-band version wears him out where it’s revealed that he was wearing a record player strapped to his back. He confesses he was cheating while in the middle of panting.

Tough Scotsman “Samson McDivott” has the hobby of training vicious dogs. He is able to back one into his dog house without any trouble but as he walks away, we see a rip at his pants in his rear end.

An instructor telling a group of pilots about motor-less flight: they fly up into the air like birds themselves!

One man has the largest collection of hotel towels and silverware in the world- the camera pans out to reveal him locked up in a jail cell!

“Julius Digby” creates a few “boons” to mankind: such as a donut which allows one to fill it with java but it squirts java everywhere once he takes a bite out of it, completely drenching him.

An elderly mailman tells us about “Hugo Hutsut”, a guy who’s always experimenting with explosives. An offscreen explosion happens as the mailman watches it take place. The aftermath has the mailman writing “Forwarding address unknown” on an envelope intended for Hutsut (animated by Dalton).

The last gag involves a bus passenger named Potts who is always bothered by the guy sitting behind him that always reads his newspaper over his shoulder and keeps flipping to various pages (such as wondering what Dick Tracy is up to that day). The narrator questions if this is supposed to be a hobby, before Potts reveals that he has a hobby too: he invents all sorts of handy gadgets, such as an eye poker which he uses to poke the eyes of the pesky passenger, allowing Potts to regain complete control over the newspaper. The narrator comments that people will sure be glad that Potts has given the world an invention like this, but then the pesky passenger and several others (who also all have black eyes, implying that they too learned the hard way what happens if you hog someone else’s newspaper) angrily retort, “Yeah, everyone will be sooooo glad, he says!”

Where Can I Watch It?

At archive.org!

Carrot Rating:

🥕🥕🥕🥕 ½