Nutty News is a 1942 Looney Tunes short directed by Bob Clampett.
Plot[]
Elmer Fudd narrates a newsreel.
A hunter uses a moose call; the moose answers back using a hunter call. A barber startles an uncooperative boy with his invention; the Hitler-in-the-box makes the boy's hair stand on end so the barber can cut it. A man uses a rear-view mirror to guard his hat while eating, but that is not all he should have guarded. In a laboratory, rabbits multiply, but by reciting their times tables. Fireflies are having a blackout. An artist uses his thumb to get the proportions correct as a model is posing. A baby chick follows along as ducks take their first swim. In the South, a traffic sign reads "No U-All Turns." A baseball pitcher throws a dollar across the Potomac, but it gets only halfway; his Scottie dog explains that a dollar does not go as far. In a fox hunt, the dogs run in circles because the lead dog is romancing the fox. A new department store is about to be built, and it has already attracted a protester. Finally, a series of battleships all sail in the rain, except the USS California, which is in bright sunshine.
Caricatures[]
- Johnny Weissmuller - The moose does the Tarzan yell.
- Adolf Hitler - as a jack-in-a-box
- Henry Binder
- George Petty - as Frank Putty
- George Washington
- Carl Hubbell - as Carl Bubble
- Leon Schlesinger - as contractor
- Ken Harris - as construction worker
Availability[]
Streaming[]
![iTunes ( - )[2]](/wiki/File:Lt_itunes.jpg "Lt itunes.jpg (48 KB)")
Censorship[]
- The version shown on Nickelodeon from 1988 to 1993 (when B&W cartoons stopped airing on the network) cut the entire scene of the new invention that forces little boys to sit still while getting their hair cut (a jack-in-the-box with the head of Adolf Hitler as the jack).
- Most syndicated prints of this short have the title card (but not the animation credits card) right-side-up rather than upside down before correcting itself due to Nazi symbolism on the upside down title card. When the short aired on Cartoon Network's The Bob Clampett Show, the title card's original presentation was shown. The title card edit was also done on its 2020 restoration print, making the original title card presentation currently lost.
Notes[]
- Due to his narration in this short, this is the first time that Elmer Fudd is at least heard in the Looney Tunes series.
- Willoughby makes a brief cameo in the fox hunt scene, marking the only time he appears in a black-and-white short.
- The scene of the ducks walking is reused animation from "Chicken Jitters" (1939). Also, during the same scene of the ducks walking, the father duck's voice is similar to that of Daffy Duck.
- This cartoon entered the public domain in 1971 due to Warner Bros. not renewing the copyright.
- As of 2024, this is the only Bob Clampett-directed cartoon outside the Censored Eleven to not be released on home media.
- At the end of the cartoon, the USS California flashes a light three quick times and then one longer time, which is Morse code for the letter V ("...-"). When this cartoon was released, the United States was well into World War II, and the V stood for "victory."
- Clampett's last name appears on a road sign.
Gallery[]
_-_Artist.jpg "Nutty News (1942) - Artist.jpg (160 KB)")
References[]