Little Red Walking Hood is a 1937 Merrie Melodies cartoon supervised by Fred Avery.[2] The short was released on November 6, 1937, and features the first appearance of an early character who later became Elmer Fudd.[3]
Plot
The cartoon features the basic plot of Little Red Riding Hood, with a few twists and oddball Tex Avery-like gags, such as Red displaying a Katharine Hepburn persona, or Grandma ordering a case of gin, while the wolf waits impatiently for her to get off the phone so he can chase her again.
The cartoon opens with the wolf playing on a vintage pinball machine. He notices Red walking by outside the window and drives after her along the sidewalk in his car. His advances fail and he decides to take a shortcut to her grandmother's house after being given the route by Elmer J. Fudd. As soon as the wolf arrives at grandma's house he knocks on the door and imitates an impression of Elmer Blurt from The Al Pearce Show. The grandma tells him to stay away but the wolf decides to burst through the door. This proves unsuccessful when he subsequently crashes through all the doors in the house and ends up in the backyard with his hat over his feet. He pulls the back doors knob and in a pinball reference, the door opens. He chases grandma around the house until she hops on a chair and crosses her fingers declaring King's X. She uses the phone to make a grocery order while the wolf waits impatiently for her to resume the chase. As the characters begin chasing each other again, grandma hides in the closet and the wolf asks her for her clothes as Red is at the door. The wolf hops into bed and asks Red to come closer. When Red exclaims, "Oh Grandmother, what large teeth you present" the wolf lunges at her and they start fighting in the corner of the room. Two silhouettes of patrons who are late to the screening show up and the wolf asks Red to wait for them to get seated. They resume fighting until Elmer shows up a sixth time and hits the wolf over the head with a mallet. As the "iris" comes back, Elmer is shown repeatedly kissing Red.
According to David Gerstein (an animation historian),[5][6] Eliza on her "Eliza’s Review Blog" for this cartoon, and Michael Barrier in his "Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age" book on his website,[7][8] this is actually the first appearance of the early prototype of Elmer Fudd.
^Scott, Keith (2022). Cartoon Voices from the Golden Age, 1930-70. BearManor Media. p. 26. ISBN979-8-88771-010-5.
^Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 64. ISBN0-8050-0894-2.
^https://www.cartoonbrew.com/classic/rare-1938-looney-tunes-book-found-5389.html on Rare 1939 Looney Tunes Book found! on CartoonBrew.com in the comments section, "As clarified by Barrier (Hollywood Cartoons, pgs. 357-358), the hair growing, wide-eyed Egghead of DAFFY DUCK AND EGGHEAD, COUNT ME OUT and others actually coexisted with squinty eyed, bald, derby-hatted Elmer, introduced in LITTLE RED WALKING HOOD and named on the lobby card for ISLE OF PINGO PONGO. Schlesinger publicity actually stated that Egghead and Elmer were brothers.
Essentially, Egghead disappeared in fairly short order while Elmer, as a separate character, evolved into the Elmer we know —, but he was named Elmer from near the start, in 1937.
Decades later, Tex Avery evidently blurred Egghead and the original Elmer together in his mind; giving rise to the conventional wisdom that one evolved into the other, with the renaming coming after the physical transformation.
Regardless of popular opinion, it isn't necessarily so. There's actually a fair amount of 1938-39 publicity material and early merchandise showing the original Elmer as Elmer.".
^https://www.cartoonbrew.com/advertising/vintage-ice-cream-packages-14033.html on Vintage Cartoon Ice Cream Packages on CartoonBrew.com in the comments section "Elmer and Egghead *are* different characters.
Elmer, before 1940, has squinty eyes, a bald head, and what would be the later Elmer's "non-hunting" outfit (derby hat, coat with high starched collar).
Egghead has wide, reflective eyes and (in DAFFY DUCK AND EGGHEAD, A-LAD-IN BAGDAD and COUNT ME OUT) bowl-cut black hair.
Both have the huge nose and the Joe Penner voice, but this was intentional —, though the two were never seen together, they were originally promoted as brothers. No kidding.
1970s staff interviews blurred the two together into one, leading to the old-time CW that Egghead became Elmer. But t'ain't so, McGee.".
^Barrier, Michael (June 25, 2009). "Summer Slumber". MichaelBarrier.com. Archived from the original on 2009-09-01. Retrieved February 3, 2013. "Here, though, is one bit of unfinished business I can sort of finish. Last March, I remarked that Elmer Fudd was not a modified version of his fellow Warner Bros. character Egghead, but that the two characters that appeared in cartoons produced in the mid and late 1930's were always distinct. That was evidenced, I noted in Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age, by Elmer's being identified in a Warner publicity sheet for Cinderella Meets Fella (filed with the Library of Congress as a copyright description) as "Egghead's brother." Someone wanted to see that sheet, and I actually intended for a time to reproduce it along with a brief history of the two characters. But I haven't written that brief history, so here, for the record, is that publicity sheet:".
