| Thugs with Dirty Mugs | |
|---|---|
 Title card from the 1944 Blue Ribbon reissue | |
| Directed by | Tex Avery |
| Story by | Jack Miller |
| Produced by | Leon Schlesinger |
| Starring | Mel Blanc Danny Webb John Deering Tedd Pierce |
| Music by | Carl W. Stalling |
| Animation by | Sidney Sutherland |
| Color process | Technicolor |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation |
| Release date |
|
| Running time | 8:05 |
| Language | English |
Thugs with Dirty Mugs is a 1939 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Tex Avery. The short was released on May 6, 1939.
The title is derived from the Warner Bros.' 1938 acclaimed feature film, Angels with Dirty Faces. It is similar to Avery's later MGM crime/detective-oriented cartoon Who Killed Who?
Plot
The film takes place in the fictional New York town of Everyville.
The title card and technical credits are followed by introductions of the two lead characters: "F.H.A. (Sherlock) Homes" as police chief "Flat-Foot Flanigan with a Floy Floy," and "Edward G. Robemsome" (a caricature of Edward G. Robinson) as gang leader "Killer Diller." After these introductions, Killer and his gang are seen robbing banks whose names run from "1st National Bank" to "112th National Bank" in numerical order (they skip the 13th bank out of superstition) — with the newspaper Telegraph Post reporting the criminals' every move, and saying that they have robbed 87 banks in a single day. Sight gags include Killer causing one bank to behave like a casino machine, and his pointing his gun into the speaker of a pay phone, causing the operator to shriek in terror and a steam of coins to come from the.coin return, the police are unable to arrest them. Flanigan himself gets help from a man in the front of the theatre who has already seen the whole movie; he tells him that Killer is making plans to go to the estate of Mrs. Lotta Jewels at 10:00 in the evening. While Killer and his gang are at the estate, listening to The Lone Stranger on the radio, Flanigan and his men capture the criminals at gunpoint. Killer is given a long sentence — which is revealed to be a prison term in which he must write "I've been a naughty boy" on a blackboard over and over. The imprisoned Killer blows a raspberry as the cartoon irises out.
Reception
The cartoon was banned in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1939, because censors "felt the film was just an excuse to show criminal activity."
Animation historian Greg Ford said Thugs with Dirty Mugs "insightfully satirizes the live-action crime thrillers being made at the Warner Bros. studios during this period... The real secret behind Thugs with Dirty Mugs' durability lies in the spot-on accuracy with which the cartoon reconstructs the trappings of Warner's gangster films."
Home media
Thugs with Dirty Mugs was released uncut and restored on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3.
See also
References
- Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company. p. 87. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.
- Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 104–106. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
- Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America by Karl F. Cohen — Google Boeken
- Beck, Jerry, ed. (2020). The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes Cartoons. Insight Editions. pp. 186–187. ISBN 978-1-64722-137-9.