Little Red Walking Hood is a 1937 Merrie Melodies short directed by Tex Avery.
Plot[]
After an excerpt from a story, "Once upon a time, while Little Red Riding Hood was carrying a basket of lunch to Grandma's house, the Mean Old Wolf was lurking in the nearby pool hall. He was-" the wolf is inside the pool hall playing a game of pinball. After he pulls back the lever, he tilts the machine trying to get the pinball in the right spot. Right about to drop into the 2,500,000 hole, it bounces off of one single peg and lands in the Out hole...
The wolf sees Little Red Riding Hood walking by with a basket, and he gets into his yellow vehicle. He follows along right next to the girl before subtly flirting with her. At first, Red gives him a cold-shoulder and asides to the girl audience members before she resumes walking. The wolf refuses to give up however, and while trailing behind her, gets hit on the head with a Stop sign. While waiting to cross the road, the early prototype of Elmer Fudd walks by while whistling and carrying a case. After the sign changes, the wolf continues to follow Red and resumes trying to catch her attention by telling her that she has everything a woman could want to be popular or famous. She only gives him the cold shoulder in response.
After he bumps into the mailbox, Red asks him to go away and informs him that he could never tempt her. She tells him that she has to get to her grandmother's house, and she is fine traveling on her own. Before she leaves, she tells him to scram.
The wolf is momentarily stuck until Prototype-Elmer pops out of the mailbox with a sign pointing out the directions to Grandma's house. Along the way, he shoots by a hitch-hiking Elmer until his arrival. Unaware that Elmer still managed to catch a ride with him, the wolf approaches the door and knocks on it, getting all bashful and momentarily goofy. When he is asked of who he is, the wolf claims to be Little Red Riding Hood. Grandma opens the door piece to see it is really the wolf and she quickly shuts it.
She tells the wolf to get away from it, and he keeps yanking on the door. Elmer approaches and walks right on in. Very angry now the wolf bursts his way into the building, through many doors, and eventually out the very final door of the house and right into a tree. He tries to open the door, pulling the doorknob which grants him access. He chases grandma around the table and into another room where her phone begins to ring. She tells the wolf to wait a moment makes conversation with the figure on the other line. She sits down and describes a shopping list to them, telling the audience she will need a minute.
The wolf, meanwhile, is growing angry and they resume chase until she runs into a closet and the wolf opens the door, in which Elmer exits. As Grandma hides, the wolf makes her hand over her items upon hearing Red Riding Hood. She points out his strange features and they begin to struggle as he attempts to eat her. The wolf then sees a few of the audience members moving about and tells Red to wait a moment. Then after the audience members sit, they resume fighting.
Elmer makes yet-another appearance, and the wolf stops again. This time to ask him why he keeps showing up throughout the cartoon and who he is. Elmer then opens the guitar case he has been carrying to reveal a big wood mallet inside. He then hits the wolf with it and informs him that he is the hero of this picture, and he begins to laugh as an iris out momentarily begins, just to open up again and shows Elmer kissing Little Red Riding Hood.
Availability[]
The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Volume 2, Side 7
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5, Disc Two (original opening, credits and closing titles restored)
Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection: Volume 5, Disc 2 (original opening, credits and closing titles restored)
Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection Volumes 4-5 Repack
Streaming[]
Goofs[]
- As Elmer crosses the road, the wolf is shown wearing his hat. But a second later it is in his hand.
Notes[]
- This is the first appearance of an earlier character that later evolved into Elmer Fudd. This character is typically mistaken for Egghead, a fellow Tex Avery creation, but these characters have always existed separately.
- The running gag and ending are both in a similar style to one of Tex's MGM cartoons called "Wild and Woolfy".
- The ending of the cartoon, in the course of the iris-out, shows Prototype-Elmer Fudd kissing Little Red Riding Hood after defeating the wolf. While most of Little Red Riding Hood's appearances often depict her as a little girl, despite that Little Red Riding Hood is drawn with a childlike appearance due to having a larger head in proportion to her body in this cartoon, her lower-pitched, more mature voice reminiscent of Katharine Hepburn, as well as she and Prototype-Elmer shown to be in a romantic relationship at the end, would possibly suggest that this Little Red Riding Hood is, in fact, an adult.
- A similar-looking character to Little Red Riding Hood from this cartoon appeared as Little Eva in "Uncle Tom's Bungalow" earlier this year; and would later reappear in "Cinderella Meets Fella" the following year.
- This is the first Merrie Melodies cartoon to use the 1937-38 Color Rings and the first to have a new Merrie Melodies logo.
- Instead of watercolors, the backgrounds for this cartoon were rendered in colored pencil, giving this cartoon a distinct look.
- In this cartoon's 1995 Turner "dubbed version" prints (applies to both the USA and EU prints), the U.S. Mail lettering on the green mailbox in one scene has been digitally removed, perhaps due to DVNR.[4]
- The USA Turner "dubbed version" print replaces the original 1937-38 MWRA ending music cue with the 1941-55 MWRA ending music cue. [5] The EU Turner dubbed version print however retains its original ending music cue.
- Both the a.a.p. prints and 1995 Dubbed version print have a moment when Wolf enters his car cut, due to split-cuts in the film source used for both prints.[6]
- Vitaphone release number: 8181
Gallery[]
References[]