Hocus Pocus Powwow is a 1968 Looney Tunes short directed by Alex Lovy.
Plot[]
Merlin the Magic Mouse and his sidekick Second Banana ride a train to their next show in Powwow City. However, they don't bring tickets, and the conductor catches the stowaways and kicks them off the train in the middle of an Indian territory. Merlin apologizes to Second Banana about the situation and decides to have a rest meal before walking to Powwow City. A dopey American Indian, Lo, notices Merlin preparing a meal with his magic hat, and wants the hat for himself. Merlin sees that Lo is shooting arrows at him and hides behind a rock. Lo still finds Merlin and steals his hat. Lo pulls out a rabbit to eat, but the rabbit bites Lo on the nose. A chicken then spawns out of the hat and lays an egg on Lo's head. Lo attempts to smash the chicken with a hammer, but it flies away, and he strikes his own head, allowing Merlin to take his hat back.
Lo continues to chase after Merlin but is tricked into being run over by a ongoing train, falling off a canyon, and running on a conveyor belt which Lo calls a "portable warpath". Merlin and Second Banana then hide and walk off in a teepee tent, and Lo removes the tent to uncover the two mice. Merlin decides to "peacefully surrender", but first he must make Lo "smoke" a peace pipe, which is just a stick with dynamite attached to the end of it. Despite outsmarting Lo and successfully reaching their show, Merlin and Second Banana are forced out, as their audience are Indians too.
Notes[]
- When shown on television anthology programs like The Merrie Melodies Show, the title was changed to Hokus Pokus Pow Wow.
- This short uses the same title card credit images from "Speedy Ghost to Town", with one being used twice for extra credits.
- This is the only Warner Bros.-Seven Arts cartoon to use Warner's version of the falling object whistle, which is used around the end of the cartoon, after Merlin lights up a dynamite to Lo the Indian and blows up, blasting him up until he falls on the ground.
- It is also the only Merlin cartoon to use Hanna-Barbera's falling object whistle, used when the Lo spin falls off a cliff. The other Merlin cartoons used instead a different Hanna-Barbera falling object whistle.
- Beginning with this cartoon, the color scheme on the "Abstract W7" opening and closing logos are changed, so the background is now blue and the W7 shield is yellow.
- The engine on the train is a 4-4-0 (four leading wheels, four driving wheels, and no trailing wheels), which is called an "American" type due to the large number of the type that were produced and used in the United States.
- Merlin's head without his hat is flat in this short, while in "Merlin the Magic Mouse" his head had a tuft of hair.
- This cartoon is rarely aired today due to ethnic stereotyping of Indigenous people, but made an appearance on Cartoon Network in America 4 July 2002.[1]
- Larry Storch takes over from Daws Butler as the voice of Merlin and Second Banana from this point on.
- Lo, the Poor Indian was planned to star in his own series of shorts, featuring his wife and son and his tribal neighbors. But the closure of Warner Bros. Animation, along with presumably the ethnic stereotyping, prevented this from coming into fruition.
Gallery[]
TV Title Cards[]
References[]