Deputy Droopy

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. 'Deputy Droopy' is one of the funniest Droopy cartoons and contains some of Avery's funniest material, at the same time it does lack the imagination of their very best cartoons (with much of it being a remake of 'Rock a Bye Bear' and also the premise is a formulaic one) and visually it doesn't always look as refined as usual.

Droopy, as usual, is so well established in personality and is high on the humour and charisma scale. The bandits are hilariously dumb, when it comes to bandits in animation or anywhere they are among the funniest and their dumbness is actually endearing as well.

Typically, Avery does a very nice job directing, with his unique, unlike-any-other visual and characteristic and incredibly distinctive wacky humour style all over it as can be expected. Michael Lah co-directs but his contribution isn't as inspired.

Once again there is nothing sadistic or repetitious, instead it's wonderfully wild and hilarious with some inventive moments.

Animation has been more imaginative and refined before than in 'Deputy Droopy', with some of the drawing lacking smoothness. Avery's distinctive wackiness and creative designing of characters though can be seen and there are some lovely vibrant colours and detailed backgrounds. The music, courtesy of Scott Bradley, is lushly and cleverly orchestrated, with lively and energetic rhythms and fits very well indeed.

Voice acting as always sees Bill Thompson, Daws Butler and Avery himself on top form.

Overall, very good and hilarious but Droopy and Avery have done better quality-wise. 8/10 Bethany Cox

The sheriff directs deputy Droopy to guard the safe. Two outlaws try to steal the gold without making a sound which could alert the sheriff in the next room. This Droopy short is a classic, simply put.

In this "Old West" story, Droopy is helping guard a shipment of gold. He takes orders from the sheriff, a burly big guy, and the two of them have just gotten off a stagecoach with several big bags of the valuable ore. They place it in the safe and the sheriff instructs Droopy to guard it while he goes in another room. Of course, two crooks have been watching all of this and are right outside the window watching and listening. The sheriff tells Droopy, "If you get in any trouble, if you see any varmints, just make a noise - any kind of noise - and I'll come a-shootin.'"

The two bandits are hilarious and what happens when they try to rob the safe, when they tie up Droopy, how they try to crack the safe, and - especially - what they do when they have to yell, is all great material. These are the dumbest two bandits I've ever seen and some of the gags are repetitive but they still will make you laugh. The best was the gag with the laughs coming out of the bottle. Now that was clever!!

Every time I see this cartoon I laugh until it hurts. Two villains are trying to steal a safe, but they can't wake up the sheriff. Droopy gives the bad guys hell like he always does. Droopy keeps inflicting them with pain and they have to constantly run up a mountain to scream so the sheriff wont hear them. The best part is when they swap heads because one of the villains stepped in glue. Try to catch this one on the Tex Avery Show on Cartoon Network sometime.

The Deputy (Droopy) is told by the Sheriff to mind things while he takes a nap. So, when some crooks come into town to rob the bank, these desperadoes do all they can NOT to wake the Sheriff but to take out the Deputy themselves. The problem is that the Deputy repeatedly hurts them--and they have to quickly run out of town to scream their heads off so as to avoid waking the Sheriff.

"Deputy Droopy" is a remake, of sorts, of "Rock-a-bye Bear". However, the film is also quite different--especially in the locale. Now I normally dislike remakes--but it's a lot easier to dislike this one because the animation quality is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than the original (as MGM had learned that crappier animation often paid off quite well--such as with the success of rival UPA). It's also odd, because you hear Droopy talking with a voice that is obviously not that of the usual voice actor--and, combined with the crappy animation that makes it look unlike Droopy, loses the charm of the character. So, while I give the original a well-deserved 9, this on only manages a 6.