Buddy's Day Out
Buddy's Day Out is a 1933 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon, directed by Tom Palmer. The short was released on September 9, 1933, and was the first cartoon to feature Buddy, the second star of the series who was created by Earl Duvall.
A former Disney animator, Palmer was shortly thereafter fired from the studio. This short was the first cartoon produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions, the successor to Harman-Ising Productions.
Summary
Unlike most Looney Tunes shorts, viewers are first silently introduced to the hero of the film just like in movie trailers back in the day, Buddy; his sweetheart, Cookie; Cookie's baby brother, Elmer; and Buddy's dog, Happy. The cartoon then completely starts with a fade-iris to Cookie giving Elmer a bath and becoming quite wet in the process. Elmer managed to grab a sponge filled with soap as he tries to get it while cookie washes the baby. Elmer then freely grabs the sponge spraying it from his left eye, and plays freely with the sponge until the sponge throws out of his hand and into Cookie's face, who is literally cleaning the kitchen. Cookie then tries to spot Elmer by cleaning his head towards his butt. Cookie and gets Elmer clean quickly with enjoyment. Meanwhile, Buddy merrily washes his car with a hose, and steps away for a moment because the hose didn’t reach the car frequently, leaving Happy the Dog alone to sniff and bark at the device. Buddy twisted the handle to prevail more water. Happy then jumps and clamps the hose with his teeth as the hose loses steady control, the car is suddenly blasted clean, but loses its roof, the Asthma text, the hood ornament, and all bumpers; Happy shakes all of the water off of his fur as the car does the same thing. Buddy takes notice and shuts the hose.Cookie soon readies herself for a date with Buddy, whom she calls when she has adequately prepared. Buddy happily tries to start his vehicle with the handler so that he might pick up Cookie, but the car begins moving in reverse. The car proceeds to smash through doghouses, along with a couple animals such as a dog, a cat, a duck, and a parrot; birdhouses with a bird inside, A running lawnmower, clothes lines, and a greenhouse filled with plants and flowers forcing it to break glass on most of the left side of the greenhouse. And just because of the latter, the car crashes at Cookie's house with a decorative arrangement of flowers, pleasing Cookie.
Buddy suddenly arrives and holds the car door for Cookie. The date begins; with Baby Elmer in the back seat, Buddy and Cookie set off on a picnic. As they started to drive, The car start shaking with nothing attached to the car with the drumroll from the 20th Century Fox theme. Happy the Dog tails behind, finally brought to the back seat by Elmer. Elmer then tries to get attention to Buddy as Elmer naughtily sprays his bottle filled with milk all over his face. Elmer then does the same thing but except Elmer hits Buddy with Elmer's bottle. The car then goes up a steep hill as the car loses control for a bit on the country road and a dangerous path road with a mechanical siren in the distance, but is felicitously stopped, by a log, at an ideal picnic site.
Buddy sets up the luncheon whilst Cookie takes up her guitar; Baby Elmer finds his way into the picnic basket, finding a sausage inside the basket. Before that outdoor animals such as frogs, worms, and bees made a big role of trying to kiss his animals girlfriend. Happy the Dog whimpers for some food, so Elmer immediately shoved a piece of sausage inside Happy's mouth. Happy the Dog whimpers again but instead, Elmer pounds a cake on to Happy's head, leaving the poor creature to run frantically around until the cake finds itself all over the baby. Cookie shames her baby brother, and Elmer, with Happy, stalks away to the car. Elmer manages to start the car engine, much to the fright of Buddy and Cookie by hitting a pedal that reads “starter”. He hits it, but then he reads the pedal. He hits it again in the car, who is next to a log, starts it as the car jumps through the log and begins its journey in high speed. The young couple then felt shocked that the car has been stolen, as Buddy spotted Elmer and Happy driving near the trees, and they must then chase the ungoverned vehicle in Elmer's baby carriage, who is originally parked next to a tree. Buddy scooped up Cookie inside the carriage as the chase begins. He then jumps inside after giving the carriage a big push.
Elmer and Happy first sped up through the dangerous pass from earlier of the short, but the camera focuses on a mirrored angle. Elmer honks Buddy's horn in excitement as the car travels down the hill with a haystack filled with chickens. The car then runs over the haystack forcing the chickens to free themselves. Some hay then sticks to his upper part of Elmer's mouth like a mustache. The car then runs over a “Pengreed Hot Dogs” sign near Joe’s Chili Parlor. The carriage that came with Buddy and Cookie spotted the sign falling from the sky as it landed towards almost a whole carriage except for the front row and the handle row in the back. Elmer honks Buddy's horn once again as he runs over by another set of clothes lines, landing it in the carriage. Buddy and Cookie’s carriage then starts to fly like an airplane. Later, and old, overweight lady walks through the bridge with her purse. He saw what is coming by is Buddy’s car with Elmer and Happy. She screams as she dropped her purse and umbrella as she covered her eyes. but the car went over her, up on the bridge’s ramps. She thought that she is going to be killed.
Elmer and Happy then later traveled and turned right onto railroad tracks straddled by Buddy's car. All four tires snapped off of the car as Elmer and Happy both started to enjoy the ride in a bumpy tracks. Suddenly, a nearby freight steam locomotive from the other side came southbound towards where Elmer and Happy came from, who is heading northbound. The train, who is carrying six boxcars and a caboose, begins speeding up in high speed. Cookie then started to spot the train and the car. Buddy and Cookie then landed the carriage onto the roof of a barn. At the time, the train’s whistle starts to blow as Buddy and Cookie moves atop a nearby ladder, which drops from its height to form a tangent from the track just as a train speeds off, being close enough for a sure collision with the car carrying Baby Elmer and Happy; the ladder miraculously becomes a spare piece of track on to which the locomotive turns, crashing and destroying the barn. Then the train continues its normal journey except the barn was crushed on the locomotive. Elmer and Happy are both saved from the locomotive. Buddy lastly then tickles Elmer, who then naughtily sprays his brave rescuer with milk for the second time as the cartoon ends.
Production
The film was directed by Tom Palmer and was one of only two films completed by him for the Schlesinger studio. According to animation historian Michael Barrier, Palmer's approach in directing Buddy's Day Out was rather loose. In the story conferences which determined the contents of the film, Palmer would suggest adding "a funny piece of business", a visual gag. He failed to specify the use of anything particularly funny. According to later interviews with Bernard B. Brown and Bob Clampett, Palmer's original version of the film was virtually devoid of gags. The Warner Bros. studio rejected this version and the film had to be reworked extensively. Barrier considers the finished film, with gags added, to also have been "desperately unfunny". The gags were neither as well conceived, nor as well executed as those found in the animated short films of the competing Walt Disney Productions.Uniqueness of the cartoon
This cartoon was the only appearance of Cookie's baby brother, as well as the only time Buddy owned a dog called Happy. In subsequent cartoons, Buddy owned a dog called Bozo, and in others Buddy's friend is a larger dog called Towser. This was also the only cartoon in which Buddy is so designed.Theater releases and modern releases
Buddy's Day Out was first shown at the Jefferson Theatre in Jefferson City, Missouri on its release day.Buddy's Day Out is available on the . It is one of only three Buddy cartoons so honored, the others being Buddy's Beer Garden and Buddy's Circus.