Studio: Bray Productions
Short Synopsis
Plot records for this short are thin, and this summary follows the surviving film. The Colonel, Bray's pint-sized, bewhiskered braggart, is out in the bush, a landscape of scrub, rocks and bare trees, when he runs into a kangaroo. The animal does what the title promises and sets the Colonel jumping: he is chased, knocked flat and left sprawled on the ground while the kangaroo bounds around him. The comedy turns on his attempts to get the better of an animal he cannot catch. A caption complains that "The only volunteer in sight is that fool donkey", and the Colonel tries to recruit the donkey into his scheme, which leaves him laid out once again. The final resolution is not described in any source this book could check.
Why It Matters
- The kangaroo's hops are the set piece. Bray times the animal's long bounding leaps against the Colonel's short legs and helpless collapses, and the bush background, with its shaded scrub and textured ground, is far busier than the bare white page of the 1914 African Hunt. Comparing the two shows how quickly studio cartoons gained detail in three years.
- Colonel Heeza Liar was the first recurring star created for animation rather than borrowed from a newspaper strip, and this 1917 entry comes near the end of the series' first run. By then Bray had turned cartoon making into an organised studio operation with patented background and cel techniques, the model on which later American cartoon studios were built.
Notes and Trivia
- The Colonel is a caricature of Theodore Roosevelt and of the tall-tale-telling old adventurer type.
- The first run ended in 1917; the character returned from 1922 to 1924, with Walter Lantz animating and adding live-action sequences.
- See also: Colonel Heeza Liar's African Hunt (1914).