Wags to Riches

Droopy was always a favorite character for me. He is the slow moving, milquetoast dog who always comes out on top. His adversary is Spike, a big bulldog. In this one, Droopy inherits a house and a fortune, but if he dies, it goes to Spike. Well we know what's next. But like so many of these cartoons, Droopy's inaction leads Spike to destroy himself. This is one that's great fun. Poor old Spike!

The short film about Droopy the dog and the catch to inherit some money. It's a short film that aired before the main feature. It's a quick film almost forgettable but somewhat comforting after all these years.

Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons.

Also have much admiration for Tex Avery, an animation genius whose best cartoons are animated masterpieces and some of the best he ever did. Generally like the Droopy cartoons and the character himself a lot, his best cartoons are classics and among Avery's best. Avery has done better than 'Wags to Riches' and so has Droopy, but still 'Wags to Riches' is very good and enormously enjoyable with pretty much everything that makes the best Droopy cartoons so good evident.

The central conflict, revolving around a familiar premise in animation, is pretty obvious with the outcome not exactly surprising. There are Droopy cartoons that execute their stories a little more imaginative and are a little more inventive. 'Wags to Riches' does have invention and the entertainment value is enormous, it's just been done better.

Spike is a sadistic, without being stomach-churningly so, foil and also a hilarious one. He works so well with Droopy who still continues to be a well-established personality and high in charisma and humour character.

Avery does a wonderful job directing, with his unique, unlike-any-other visual and characteristic and incredibly distinctive wacky humour style all over it as can be expected.

'Wags to Riches' is clever, beautifully timed and never less than very funny. It doesn't feel repetitious, with enough variety to stop it from being so, the violence is not done distastefully and the energy is fantastic.

It is no surprise either that the animation is superb. The character designs are unique, Avery always did have creative character designs, and suitably fluid. The music, courtesy of Scott Bradley, is lushly and cleverly orchestrated, with lively and energetic rhythms and fits very well indeed.

Can never fault the voice acting in the Droopy cartoons, 'Wags to Riches' is no different.

Overall, very good and enormously enjoyable. 8/10 Bethany Cox

After leaving Warner Bros, Avery got a job at MGM again directing Short Films, after several Characters like Screwy Squirrel and George and Junior, Avery learned what it takes to be funny after Dumb Hounded in 1943, where with a very simple plot she managed to entertain and funny, but the focus was not obtained by the Wolf who was the protagonist of that short, but by the Hound that appeared there, previously called Happy Hound.

Happy Hound (later renamed as Droopy) continued to appear in supporting roles until gaining the recognition he deserved in The Shot of Dan Mcgoo in 1945, so he got his own series of short films, where he was paired with many iconic MGM characters, Like the Wolf and the Little Red Riding Hood.

And after following a path full of success, Droopy reached its highest point with Wags to Riches, in the last year of the 40s, "we must close this decade well" Avery thought when creating this masterpiece, which I consider it one of his most important works and one of the best he directed.

Here he is paired with Butch (here called Spike) a Bulldog similar to Spike but with a Greedy and Treacherous Personality, who upon learning that his late owner left his entire fortune to his Housemate Droopy, is filled with anger and envy , and after reading a text that says "in the case of the death of the Droopy dog, all the money falls into Spike's possession" he takes the Initiative trying to assassinate him but failing in all his poor and miserable attempts.

The animation was glorious, MGM at its Highest Moments, attractive and well colored backgrounds, there is a great use of Smear Frames, which cause a more attractive and moderately fluid Animation, as well as exaggerated expressions, which fit the humor well.

The Music was good at best, once again praising Bradley I can just say it was well placed and a delight to the ears.

It really was a good short, it has a simple plot but it was charmingly done, it has relentless animation and a Humor on par with Looney Tunes or Tom and Jerry, I think it's one of Droopy's best and it will still hold that position.

For all the above, this short gets a more than deserved 6, it's a joke, it's actually called a deserved 10! Congratulations to Avery and his team for this wonderful job.

This cartoon was re-done about seven years later as Millionaire Droopy with little changed, for reasons I can only guess at. Millionaire Droopy is the ultimate "cheater" short, in my opinion. A "cheater" is a short where much of the short is comprised of cribbed scenes from other cartoons, with some new animation as a framing device around it to make a "new" cartoon. This was done so that distribution contracts could be adhered to when they fell behind the production schedule (as they inevitably did), as a cheater required less time to produce than a completely new short did. While a good cartoon, Wags To Riches wasn't good enough to be cloned! Good to see it's in print, though. Well worth watching. Recommended