Red Hot Riding Hood is an animated short film, directed by Tex Avery and released on May 8, 1943 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, starring the Wolf, (Droopy's later rival) and Red. In 1994, it appeared in the seventh place of the list 50 Greatest Cartoons, realized thanks to the votes of several specialists in the animation field.
Plot[]
The story begins with a narrator who recounts the common version of Little Red Riding Hood, with the main character going to visit her grandmother through the woods and The Big Bad Wolf about to get her. However, The Big Bad Wolf, the grandmother, and Little Red Riding Hood herself stop the story to complain to the narrator about how they're sick of doing the story the anodyne, traditional way. The narrator decides to retell the story as Red Hot Riding Hood, where the Big Bad Wolf is a limo-driving womanizer, Little Red Riding Hood is a sultry, redheaded nightclub singer, and Grandma is man-hungry and lives in a penthouse.
The wolf goes to visit the club where Little Red Riding Hood works, and at the moment of seeing it reacts savagely to the spectacle that the young woman realizes. When Caperucita finishes singing, the wolf takes it to its table, where it tries to conquer it. However, the young woman tells him that he should go and visit his grandmother. The wolf manages to reach Grandmother's apartment before Caperucita, but instead of following the logic of the original story, it is the old woman who chases the wolf, harassing him so he does not leave.
After falling through the apartment window, the wolf returns to the nightclub. Tired of women, he promised that he would kill himself before he wanted another. Immediately, Little Red Riding Hood appears and the wolf keeps his promise. However, his spirit stays in the nightclub and reacts in a similar way to what he had originally done.
Availability[]
- (1988) VHS, LaserDisc - Cartoon Moviestars: Cartoons for Big Kids
- (1989) VHS - Tex Avery Screwball Classics 2 (unrestored; MGM/UA)
- (1993) LaserDisc - The Compleat Tex Avery, Side 1
- (2010) DVD - Banned & Censored Cartoons: Volume I
- (2019) Streaming - Boomerang App
- (2020) Blu-ray - Tex Avery Screwball Classics: Volume 1 (restored)
Notes[]
- This cartoon is essentially an updated, more adult-oriented remake of the 1937 Looney Tunes cartoon "Little Red Walking Hood," also directed by Avery.
- The cartoon is a favorite of The Mask protagonist Stanley Ipkiss. The cartoon also served as the inspiration for his crush Tina Tyrell's performance at the Coco Bongo nightclub, where Ipkiss' alter Mask ego gawks, awes and even briefly transforms into a wolf who whistles.
- This cartoon is referenced in the Barney Bear cartoon The Unwelcome Guest, being a book Barney reads.
- "Red Hot" is reused again as a cartoon title name with Red Hot Rangers, but that cartoon is unrelated to this one besides both cartoons being directed by Tex Avery.
- Originally the wolf intended to appear as a cameo during the scene in which Jessica Rabbit sings in the club of the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.[2]
- MeTV aired this cartoon on Saturday Morning Cartoons and Toon in With Me, however the airing appears unrestored.
Censorship[]
- A version of this cartoon exists that has a lot of scenes that the censors of the time felt was too vulgar for 1940s audiences. Some of the Wolf's sexually-charged reactions to seeing Red singing on stage were cut (including one where steam erupts from his collar) and the original ending where the Grandma drags the Wolf into marrying her (featuring a scene of Tex Avery as a Justice of the Peace) and, years later, the Wolf takes his half-lupine, half-human kids to see Red at the nightclub was changed to one where, after the Wolf is tossed out the window of the penthouse, he returns to the nightclub and tells the audience that women are nothing but trouble and if he sees another pretty woman, he's going to kill himself (which he does when Red appears on stage again). Cartoon Network's anthology series, ToonHeads, once showed a still from the lost ending, meaning that the original, racy version (said to have been shown to military audiences overseas) does still exist.
- TBS and TNT (back when they aired MGM shorts) edited the general audience ending where the Wolf vows to kill himself if he ever sees a woman again (and does so when Red appears onstage) to remove the Wolf taking two guns out and shooting himself in the head. Surprisingly, Cartoon Network and Boomerang (which also edit out suicide gags that involve characters shooting themselves in the head) left this uncut.
Gallery[]
