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This article is about the 1969 cartoon. For the 1938 cartoon of the same name, see Injun Trouble (1938 short).

Injun Trouble is a 1969 Merrie Melodies short directed by Robert McKimson.

Title[]

The title is a play on the phrase "engine trouble," substituting "Injun", which is a derogatory term for "Indian" or Native American. The same title was also used for an unrelated 1938 Porky Pig short.

Plot[]

Cool Cat is driving to the town of Hotfoot one day, when his route happens to take him through an Indian reservation. Two scouts spot him, and one of them gives chase, only to fall into a chasm when the weight of him and his horse causes the makeshift bridge to collapse, even though it had carried Cool Cat and his car without trouble. Cool Cat rescues the horse, throws a rope to the man, and continues his journey. Along the way, he encounters a man who tries to give his heavily obese daughter away, a more attractive woman that invites him for an "Indian Wrestle", which turns out to be a fight with a man who is far larger than Cool Cat, a literal bareback rider, a man who imitates Groucho Marx, and a Native American who uses a stenograph-like device to create smoke signals which read "COOL CAT GO HOME!"

Finally arriving in Hotfoot, Cool Cat spots two horses playing human shoes, and a "Horse Doctor" who really is a horse. After that, Cool Cat spots a "Topless Saloon" and heads in, but discovers that the only topless person in there is the bartender, a rather burly man. An outlaw named Gower Gulch then arrives and seemingly challenges Cool Cat, but settles for a game of poker. Cool Cat gets a good hand with four Aces, only for Gulch to an announce that his pair of deuces wins on account of it including a six-shooter. Announcing that he is "cutting out," Cool Cat produces a pair of scissors and cuts himself out of the background, leaving a Cool Cat-shaped hole. He then reappears for a moment before ending the cartoon and the original series' run with, "So cool it now, ya hear?".

Notes[]

  • This is the last new Warner Bros. short of the Golden Age of Animation (albeit not the last one overall) to be released in theaters. The last Warner Bros. cartoon to receive a theatrical run during the Golden Age of Animation was a Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodie reissue of the Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoon, "Gee Whiz-z-z-z-z-z-z", which premiered on December 27, 1969.
    • The studio would not release theatrical shorts again until the late 1980s with "The Night of the Living Duck" and "The Duxorcist". However, it resumed production in 1979, making new shorts for television.
  • This is the second of only two Cool Cat shorts to be directed by Robert McKimson, and the last Warner Bros. cartoon to be directed by him.
  • Cool Cat's "So cool it now, ya hear?" is a parody of the studio's famous, but at the time abandoned, catchphrase, "That's all Folks!" effectively ending the cartoons just as they began.
  • Barring its appearance in the syndicated version of The Merrie Melodies Show, "Injun Trouble" has not been seen on widespread television in America or on any home media release, largely in part to the Native American/American Indian/Indigenous American stereotypes.
  • Gower Gulch shares a similar design to the unnamed outlaw from "Fistic Mystic".
  • This cartoon was submitted for the 1969 Academy Awards, but was not shortlisted.[1]

Gallery[]

TV Title Cards[]

References[]