Studio: MGM Cartoons
Distributor: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Produced by: Fred Quimby
Short Synopsis
A convict, the Wolf, breaks out of Swing Swing Prison, and the bloodhounds are let loose to track him. Last out of the kennel, plodding far behind the pack, is a small, sad-faced basset hound: Droopy. He turns to the audience and introduces himself, in a flat, sleepy voice, as the hero of the story. Despite his slowness, Droopy finds the Wolf straight away, and from then on the Wolf can't shake him. Every time he escapes, Droopy is already waiting: in his hiding place, at the end of a staircase, inside a taxi, on a train, on a ship, on a plane. Wherever the Wolf runs, Droopy is there, greeting him politely. When the frantic Wolf asks how he does it, Droopy answers, "Let's not get nosy, bub." In the end Droopy drops a huge boulder on the Wolf from a rooftop, remarking to the audience that it is rather gruesome, and the Wolf is captured. The mayor hands Droopy his reward. Droopy leaps around cheering wildly, then stops, turns to the camera, and announces in his usual monotone: "I'm happy."
Why It Matters
- Droopy's power lies in contrast: he never hurries, never raises his voice and never loses, while the Wolf runs himself ragged at Avery's breakneck speed. The final "I'm happy", deadpan after an explosion of joy, is one of the great punchlines in animation.
- It is the first appearance of Droopy, MGM's most durable Avery character, voiced by Bill Thompson. The film's structure, a fugitive who cannot escape an omnipresent pursuer, was so effective that Avery remade it as Northwest Hounded Police (1946), and it shaped Droopy's later appearances.
Notes and Trivia
- The prison's name puns on New York's Sing Sing.
- Bill Thompson based Droopy's voice on a character he played on the Fibber McGee and Molly radio show.
- See also: Red Hot Riding Hood (1943), Blitz Wolf (1942).