Magical Maestro - History

History

The concept of cartoons with insinuating situations is hardly new—Tex Avery especially featured a few quick jokes of this nature in his cartoons. Magical Maestro, for example, shows Poochini with a male and female rabbit on each arm. He lowers his arms behind his back and when he raises them again, he now has an additional dozen baby rabbits on them, six on each arm.

This cartoon features a gimmick only seen in Tex Avery films, the "hair gag". Because cartoons were shown originally in movie theatres, it was not uncommon for a hair to get caught in the 'gate' of the projector. Sometimes it would skitter across the projection light, resulting in a gigantic hair appearing on the movie screen. In this cartoon, the opera singer pauses mid-song to pluck the offending hair from the film and tosses it aside, one of Avery's many ways of his characters breaking the fourth wall. It wasn't the first time Avery used this gag. It was also used in Aviation Vacation (1941).

The role of Poochini is portrayed by Spike the bulldog, a frequent star of Avery's cartoons of that era (often alongside Droopy).

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