Studio: Leon Schlesinger Productions
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
Produced by: Leon Schlesinger
Short Synopsis
The camera pans past the joke-laden signs of "Ye Towne Cooler", a small-town jail, where Eggbert, a bloodhound with a cold, is asleep. A radio alarm wakes him, and he smashes it with a mallet. He is about to do the same to Constable Porky Pig when Porky shows him a wanted poster: they have to catch a Nazi spy, the "Missing Lynx". Eggbert sneezes so violently that Porky is blown out of the jail. Thanks to his blocked nose, Eggbert has trouble picking up the trail, and when they find the spy, a lynx in a coat, he tries to fool them with disguises, until another sneeze blows the hunters away. The spy plants a bomb, "Hallelujah, I'm a Bomb", under a railway bridge and gloats to Porky about his plan, but Eggbert keeps fetching the bomb back and dropping it at the spy's feet, again and again. Everyone ends up in a cave; one more sneeze scatters them, and the spy lands beside the bomb as the timer runs out. Nothing happens. Disgusted, the spy slams the "dud" on the ground, and it explodes. Up in the clouds, he jumps for joy that his bomb worked after all, gives a Nazi salute and falls back to earth.
Why It Matters
- The fetching dog who keeps returning the bomb is a simple, perfectly built gag, and the spy's delight at being blown up by his own working bomb is a sharp joke about fanatical pride. The film shows how Warner's cartoons turned wartime fear of sabotage into comedy.
- It is a typical example of Warner's wartime propaganda shorts, made by Norman McCabe, a less celebrated director who took over Bob Clampett's black-and-white Looney Tunes unit.
Notes and Trivia
- The title puns on the 1939 Warner feature Confessions of a Nazi Spy.
- The spy is called the "Missing Lynx", a pun on "missing link", and the bomb is named after the song "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum".
- See also: Blitz Wolf (1942), Daffy - The Commando (1943).