Little Red Walking Hood

As I understand it, more than just another twist on Little Red Riding Hood, Tex Avery's "Little Red Walking Hood" takes a slightly different approach in its portrayal of the wolf. Having gotten released in 1937, the cartoon opens with the wolf playing a pinball game that apparently came out in the early '30s; ergo, the wolf is supposed to not be very up to date on popular trends. But then again, when he comes on to Little Red, his speech almost sounds like jazz lyrics. This is one complex wolf.

It's worth noting that Tex Avery's fairy tale parodies were like a karate chop on Disney's versions. It was in fact Disney who decided that cartoons should be "cute" and frequently used fairy tales and nursery rhymes as the plots (fairy tales are also easy to use because they're public domain). Warner Bros. cartoons turned this "children's entertainment" into jokes...and really good ones, I might add.

Otherwise, the main highlights were Little Red talking like Katharine Hepburn and giving the wolf a literal cold shoulder. Backgrounds drawn with color pencil were an unusual trick; I wonder why more cartoons didn't do that. As for Egghead, he was always a fairly enigmatic character, but I think that most Looney Tunes fans will agree that he reached his full potential once the Termite Terrace crowd turned him into Elmer Fudd.

Anyway, worth seeing.