Cross Country Detours (1940)

• 68%
• 1940
• Animation
• Tex Avery
• Bea Benaderet
• Sara Berner
• Mel Blanc

A series of travelogue gags, focusing on national parks and wildlife. In Yosemite, we meet a bear and a deer; the bear enforces his own "do not feed" sign; the deer greets us with "hello, big boy." A desperate scoutmaster asks to use a gas station washroom, then calls his troop of hundreds. A fire ranger spots a discarded cigar and races to pick it up - and smoke it. Alaska: A husky dog reads a mileage sign and sets off for California (beginning a running gag). A ferocious bobcat stalks a cute defenseless baby quail. The desert: we see our dog again; a lizard sheds its skin like a stripper. Because the next scene is scary, the screen is split: for the grownups, a scary gila monster; for the children, a little girl reciting "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and snarling at the reptile when she finishes. The Grand Canyon: A tourist testing the echo hears an operator: "I'm sorry, they do not answer" (and the dog, again). Beavers build the Hoover Dam. The dog reaches California, where he makes for the giant redwoods.