An Exercise In Nonsense

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

OK, so a number of cartoons have used fairy tales as their basis, and Little Red Riding Hood is one of the prime examples. In the early '40s, Warner Bros. alone released several cartoons featuring renditions of the story. One example is Friz Freleng's "The Trial of Mr. Wolf", in which the story's lupine co-star tells his version of the events: Little Red and grandmother are a pair of homicidal maniacs bent on turning him into a fur coat. Of course, we the audience doubt Mr. Wolf's credibility the whole time.I suspect that this cartoon was a place holder in between the really great cartoons of that year (1941 saw Bugs Bunny's ascendancy to cartoon superstar in shorts such as "Elmer's Pet Rabbit", "Tortoise Beats Hare" and "Wabbit Twouble"). So we can forgive it if it doesn't quite reach the hilarity level achieved by Warner's more famous cartoons. Worth seeing for what it is. Available on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 5 Disc 2.

Here is yet another take on "Little Red Riding Hood," this one from the wolf's side! By the way, I have yet to see a bad spoof of that famous fairy tale as that story seems to bring out the best in Looney Tunes writers.This also is hilarious right from the beginning at the court room. Check out the wolf's attire and his shills in the jury, or the Katharine Hepburn imitation by "Red." Even in 1941, some of these cartoons seemed geared more for adults to laugh than kids.This cartoon really gives a unique on the story as we see a not-so-innocent Little Red Riding Hood, portrayed as a brutal, ruthless accomplice to the furrier "Grandma," who wants to skin the poor old wolf for his hide! This is unbelievable! Read the quotes under "Fun Stuff" on the title page here and you get idea of what you'll see and hear in this wild cartoon, which I found hilarious - especially the bloodthirsty Granny near the end - with spectacular artwork.Whoever did the Hepburn imitation should be given credit, too, but it's not listed here. The voices, the artwork and the comedy all make this a huge winner, one of the best of the early Looney Tunes cartoons.

This short takes the Little Red Riding Hood tale and flips it around, with an amusing (if improbable) version being told by the Wolf on the witness stand. As I want to discuss some of the details, this is a spoiler warning: The short opens with the introduction of the case of the Big Bad Wolf versus Little Red Riding Hood, in a bit of a role reversal, with the Wolf bringing charges against Little Red Riding Hood, with his attorney making an opening statement to a jury comprised of a majority of wolves (and one very lonely skunk at the FAR end of the jury box. The Wolf is on the witness stand. Given the story he's relating, if he's under oath, he may well be up on perjury charges before the day is out! He portrays himself in such sweetly decorous behavior that he makes Buster Brown look like one of the Dead End Kids. He's so infantile that a bird yells at him, telling him harshly to act his own age. The Wolf then paints a picture of Little Red Riding Hood (with a voice styled after Katharine Hepburn) out to be a conniving trader in fur coats. He winds up at Grandma's house, where Red disappears from the short after pushing him inside and locking a whole flock of doors. Grandma is in bed and you hear a variation on the exchange between Red and the Wolf, only with the Wolf delivering Red's standard lines and Grandma doing the Wolf's. Grandma then spends most of the rest of the short trying to separate the Wolf from his hide (strangely enough, Grandma isn't in the dock with Red, though she supposedly tries to kill him and skin him repeatedly.We finally return to the Wolf rather energetically trying to testify, only to find that even a packed jury doesn't believe his baloney. The ending is cute and I won't spoil it here. This one is well worth watching, if you get the opportunity. Recommended.

One of what seems an endless number of takes on the Little Red Riding Hood story from around this era, this one is cleverly presented in the form of a court trial with the Wolf as defendant. Part of the cartoon takes place in the courtroom, where the Wolf's untrustworthiness is obvious (early on he stands up and a hand grenade, knife and gun fall out of his coat). The other part consists of a film within a film based on the Wolf's recreation of the events, which has him lured to to Grandma's house - Grandma turns out to be a furrier and is after him for his coat. All of this works very well, but with quite a few Merrie Melodies I've seen from this period it rather falls in a heap with a sudden ending which seems hastily thought out and doesn't really tie in to the main theme of the cartoon satisfyingly. Still, good fun.