Fleischer Friday: Ha Ha Ha
A word of warning: the last minute and a half of this cartoon is creepy beyond belief.
As you can see, this cartoon revives the old “Out of the Inkwell” convention of Max Fleischer making drawings that come to life. I love how Betty calls him “Uncle Max,” by the way. Does this mean she calls Dave Fleischer “Daddy?”
It’s always struck me as odd how in cartoons people eat sweets and immediately get a toothache, which isn’t usually how things work in real life. Maybe it was a more common problem in the olden days when regular dental care was less common and people were more likely to have festering cavities waiting for sugar to fall in and irritate them. On the other hand, it might just be the sort of thing that happens in cartoons. Regardless, the little spike-driving devils in Koko’s tooth are one of my favorite images in the cartoon.
For the record, my other favorite image in the cartoon is Koko’s sock garters.
The battle between the dentures and the pliers is pretty bizarre. The music drops out which makes it feel like a disconnected interlude, and it goes on for what feels like an incredibly long time.
The creepiness begins in earnest when the laughing gas starts flowing. First of all, it’s hard to escape the impression that it infects Betty by billowing up her dress (and presumably entering her body through a non-respiratory orifice). Then she sings the “Ha Ha Ha” song, which is marginally unsettling, but nothing compared to what’s to come.
Once the gas leaves the page and spreads through the real world, things really become terrifying. The first time I saw the cuckoo clock erupt into full-throated laughter, I thought that might be the creepiest image in any Fleischer cartoon. However, it’s immediately topped by the typewriter keys distorting into a demonic grin. Then things start to ease up a little, but before long an entire cemetery full of headstones breaks out in guffaws, and you realize this cartoon wants to eat your soul.
As in Koko’s Earth Control, we see here that the cartoon world has power (specifically, destructive power) over the real world. This is an especially interesting notion since at the top of both shorts we see the creation of the cartoon world by that most foolhardy (or secretly malicious) denizen of reality, Max Fleischer. The man was practically a supervillain.
I seem to recall getting a toothache once just after eating doughnuts and drinking Mountain Dew. Ah, college all-nighters. It wasn’t really a cavity kind of toothache so much as a sugar shock though.
Doesn’t the Joker pull this on the poor beleaguered citizens of Gotham at some point? Was that in a cartoon or movie? I seem to remember it led to violence similar to that in the crowd scene here.
My mother never took me to a dentist who administered laughing gas. I’ll never forgive her for this frightful neglect.
The Joker pulls this kind of stunt all the time, but I feel like you might be thinking of the 1989 movie, in which he gasses the city during a parade.
Of course, the sad thing about actual dental laughing gas is that it doesn’t really make you giggle uncontrollably. When I was a kid I always expected it to.
I have sensitive teeth and a crown and anytime I eat sweets on one side of my mouth I get an immediate tooth ache.
The dentist says that it’s nothing to worry about. No cavities.