Happy holidays, folks!
Taking “Th-th-that’s all folks” way too literally.
The past was a different world.
I love Pepe’s one-frame heart at 1:57.
The joke wasn’t about suicide; it was about comic overreaction. It’s akin to John Cleese’s rant in Cheers.
No kidding. I was reading some “Terry and the Pirates” comics from the 1930s and there was a story where Terry was stuck on an island with some dangerous criminals. His solution to the problem? Use some “gaslight” tactics to turn them against each other and then get the last surviving crook to commit suicide. Problem solved, kids!
Heck, there was an entire story arc in theMickey Mouse newspaper strip of Mickey trying to off himself!
Mickey Mouse!
Tom & Jerry dejectedly sitting on the tracks, waiting for the train to come.
There’s a link in a recent “weird cartoon” thread.
Also at the very end of the OP’s video.
Oh, okay.
I’m on my work computer so at the moment so streaming content like YouTube is verboten.
This reminds me of a “Christmas special” I ran across last year. I can’t remember exactly who was on it, but it starred several of the prominent TV stars of the times (1950s, give or take.) The whole special took place in a department store, with the people shopping for Christmas gifts (it was actually pretty similar to a Seinfeld episode.) One story thread that developed throughout the special had someone buying a wallet for an employee, which the salesman gift wrapped. The buyer kept changing his mind on which one to buy and what he wanted written on the card, with the salesman having to change the sale, unwrap the wallet, and wrap the new one each time. At the end of the sequence, the frustrated salesman walks into the back room, and you hear a single gunshot. Merry Christmas, everyone!
Incomplete without Drinky Crow. Too bad I can’t find the clip.
He helps a squirrel gather nuts for two dollars. Buys a bottle of hootch for one, drinks himself drunk. Does it again the next day, and the next. Forth day, buys a gun for $3 and blows his brains out.
Great cartoon!
Jack Benny Christmas Shopping Show, 1957. The final scene starts at about 24:20. Jack Benny is the shopper, and Mel Blanc is the clerk.
Thanks. I googled Red Skelton, I googled Bob Hope, then I gave up (and assumed someone here would know.)
I must’ve missed that one, and I’m not able to find it now. Got a link to a clip?
And some people think Lenny Bruce and the National Lampoon invented pitch black humor.
Incidentally, you can find a lot of suicide gags in early silent comedies. One scene that comes to mind is from a Harold Lloyd film where a despondent Harold tries to off himself by jumping off a bridge only to find that the water just goes up to his shins. Then there’s the Buster Keaton movie “Cops” where Buster commits suicide by cops at the end.
I can’t find the video, but here is the transcript. Imagine Cleese in Basil Fawlty mode saying it; it won him an Emmy.
I also note that he talked about suicide, too.
I’m wondering how long ago that stopped being used “straight” as a funny gag? (I’m not counting modern things like *Family Guy *consciously attempting to be shocking.)