Studio: Walter Lantz Productions
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Short Synopsis
Oswald drives up to a nightclub, and when the doorman tells him he can't park there, he squeezes his car down to pocket size, tucks it into his shorts and blows a raspberry. A big wolf arrives at the club with his cub clinging to his coat; to get rid of the child, he stuffs him into a pair of pyjamas and hangs him from a lamp post. The cub wriggles free and spends the rest of the film asking everyone, "Is my father in there?" Inside, the band plays "Alexander's Ragtime Band" and a quartet of dogs in tuxedos sings "Sweet Adeline" to a cold reception. Oswald, dancing on his table, accidentally kicks the wolf, who pulls his head off; Oswald puts himself back together and jams a jar over the wolf's head. A chain of laughing, kicking and spitting runs through a cow, a mouse and an elephant until the whole club is brawling. A police wagon arrives and drives off with the entire building. The cub chases it, gives up, and pulls open a phone booth, still asking his question.
Why It Matters
- The chain-reaction brawl, where each animal laughs at the last one's humiliation and pays for it, is a neat piece of comic construction, and the image of the police simply hauling the whole nightclub away is pure early-sound-era absurdity.
- Its real afterlife is the cub's catchphrase. "Is my father in there?" went on to turn up in later Lantz cartoons as a running gag, so this short is where a studio in-joke of the early sound era begins.
Notes and Trivia
- Walter Lantz took over Oswald after Universal ended its arrangement with Charles Mintz in 1929, and this is from his first full season with the character.
- The songs, "Alexander's Ragtime Band" and "Sweet Adeline", were already old standards in 1930, chosen because audiences would recognise them instantly.
- See also: Trolley Troubles (1927).