The Early Bird Dood It! is a 1942 cartoon directed by Tex Avery.
Plot[]
The cartoon begins with a disclaimer:
To the Ladies...
The worm in this photoplay is fictitious—Any similarity between this worm and your husband is purely intentional.
The scene fades to a tranquil forest landscape in complete silence—which a sign even points out (“Quiet isn’t it?”). A worm pokes a hat on a stick out of his hole in the ground and waves it around. Once he sees that nobody is around, he climbs out of the hole and begins to walk, when suddenly a bird begins to chase him. The worm dives back into his hole. The bird threatens to beat up the worm, but when he sticks his head in the hole, the worm ties a napkin around his beak. The bird pulls out a book with a “worm ration card” and, for Wednesday, writes “0.” The bird leaves the scene and tells the audience “See you folks tomorrow morning.”
The worm wonders if there is a way that he can get rid of the bird. Just then, he sees a cat and a mouse chasing each other. The mouse runs into a hole in a barrel while the cat slams against it and turns into a flat plate. This gives the worm an idea. He wakes up the cat and asks him if he could go for a nice, juicy bird. The worm tells his plans for tomorrow morning: the cat will be behind a tree. When the worm jumps into his hole, the cat will grab the bird. The cat agrees, and the worm pulls down a curtain reading “Next morning.”
The cat pokes out a sign reading “CAT” from behind the tree and points to himself. The bird chases the worm back into the hole. The cat covers the bird’s eyes and asks “Guess who.” The bird answers “I’d say the cat.” The cat grabs the bird and accuses him of being a cheater, but the bird bites the cat’s nose. The cat chases the bird around a tree, but the bird slips away and hits the cat on the head. In pain, the cat says some things which are muted (text on screen reads “CENSORED DIALOGUE”). The worm pops out of his hole and thinks that the bird has met his end.
The worm bumps into the bird and begins greeting him until he comes to his senses and another chase ensues, the duo only stopping at a billboard advertising “Mrs. Minimum” and the short they’re in, “The Early Bird Dood It!” (“Say, I hear that’s a pretty funny cartoon.” “Well, I hope it’s funnier than this one!”) The bird stops to observe what he thinks is a human leg, only for it to be the worm, who whacks him on the head with a bat. The bird grabs the bat and prepares to hit the worm on the head, only to be taken aback when he finds that the worm is traveling on the head of a cat. The cat begins chasing the bird, but the two briefly stop at a bar for some beer. The two also slow down when they realize that they ran past a sign reading “SLOW.” The cat ends up running off a cliff preceded by a series of signs reading “DEAD END,” “CURVE AHEAD,” “STOP,” “DETOUR,” and “BRIDGE OUT.” He finds himself at the bottom of a pool of water next to a sign reading “HOW DID YOU GET WAY DOWN HERE?”
The worm pokes a stick with a hat on it out of the hole, but when he realizes that the bird is perched on the stick, another chase ensues. The bird finds a wormhole, covers it with a rock, and paints a fake hole on the ground. The worm dives into the hole anyway and tells the bird “I fooled ya!” The bird tries to dive into the hole, but it doesn’t work. The worm dives out of the hole and into a lake. The bird lifts up the lake like a blanket, only to find the cat underneath it. The cat begins to chase the bird yet again, and the two end up falling down a cliff. The worm takes off his hat and starts to play “TAPS,” only to briefly burst into an upbeat tune. He goes back home, feeling bad for the cat but glad that he got rid of the bird. He retreats back into the hole, but then the bird pops out and gulps. He walks behind a tree, but then the cat pops out from behind it, licks his lips, then hiccups before pulling out a sign reading “SAD ENDING AIN’T IT?”
Availability[]
- (1993) LaserDisc - The Compleat Tex Avery, Side 1
- (2007) DVD - The Mickey Rooney & Judy Garland Collection, Disc 3
- (2019) Streaming - Boomerang
- (2021) Blu-ray - Tex Avery Screwball Classics: Volume 3 (restored; Warner Bros.)
Notes[]
- The original titles to this and other Tex Avery cartoons were found on an eBay auction in 2004.
- This cartoon marks the first use of the untitled "Tex Avery theme" by Scott Bradley that was used in a lot of title cards of the cartoons directed by Tex Avery, although it wouldn't be commonly used until The Counterfeit Cat.
- This was Tex Avery's first MGM cartoon that was put into production before "Blitz Wolf", however it was later released a week later after the aforementioned cartoon.[3]
Gallery[]
