Studio: Walter Lantz Productions
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Produced by: Walter Lantz
Short Synopsis
Little has been written about the plot of this one-off Woody short, so this summary describes what is on screen. It is wartime, petrol is rationed, and Woody Woodpecker's little red car has run dry. At a filling station he tries to talk the attendant into filling it up, popping the bonnet and pointing at the tank, but without ration coupons he gets nowhere. So Woody decides to get his fuel some other way. He sets about stealing petrol from other vehicles, and finds a target in a parked car belonging to a burly police officer. Woody slips under it and, with a length of red hose, starts siphoning off the cop's petrol, while bolts and parts drop from the underside of the car. The policeman catches on and gives chase, and the hose ends up in his own mouth as he struggles to get his fuel back. The chase builds to an enormous explosion that fills the screen. Where it leaves Woody and the policeman is best discovered by watching; it is not described in any source this book could check.
Why It Matters
- It is a sharp little piece of home-front comedy: petrol rationing was a daily frustration for American audiences in 1943, and Woody, who simply refuses to accept it, acts out the temptation to cheat the system. The siphoning gags with the hose are inventive, and the finale goes as big as wartime cartoons ever went.
- It is the only Woody Woodpecker cartoon directed by Emery Hawkins and Milt Schaffer, and the only one in which Woody is voiced by Dick Nelson, which makes it an unusual one-off in the series. It shows the Lantz studio, short of staff in wartime, trying different hands on its star.
Notes and Trivia
- The title puns on "ration board", the local wartime boards that issued coupons for petrol, sugar and other rationed goods.
- Emery Hawkins later became known as one of the most inventive animators of his generation.
- See also: The Screwball (1943), Pantry Panic (1941).