This is a very funny short which gets virtually all its laughs by playing off the personality of W.C. Fields (here represented in caricature as a pig names W. C. Squeals). The few gags which don't center around this central joke are relatively minor and mostly pale in comparison, though the new lyrics set to "The Blue Danube" are interesting. Because I want to discuss details, this is a spoiler warning:
W. C. Fields was frequently used as a source for caricature because he was such a colorful character, both as part of his act (that being a cantankerous and cynical horse thief and a fair man with the bottle) and, to a significant degree, in reality (he really was a heavy drinker). Even the title of the short is a double-edged play on words, as the cartoon features a figure-skating contest and cracked ice is frequently used in mixing drinks.
Here, caricatured as a pig, named W.C. Squeals, he's seen a short time into the short, after some perfunctory gags which principally serve to set the atmosphere (it's cold, animals are skating, etc.) Squeals sees a crane fall through the ice and frantically calls for help. A St. Bernard shows up, rescues the bird and pours spirits into him, at which point Squeals develops a notable thirst and a need for "medicinal" help that only the keg can provide. Alas, the St. Bernard ignores his comically "heart-rending" appeals for the kindness of a stranger and Squeals decides that a feigned drowning and rescue is in order. The St. Bernard comes out, mixes a drink and then downs the toddy himself and leaves (a bit unsteadily). So Squeals resorts to a complicated scheme, involving a magnet and a metal dish filled with dog bones.
All through this sequence, Squeals is heckled from the audience by a disembodied voice patterned after Charlie McCarthy, Edgar Bergen's primary ventriloquist's dummy. Fields and Bergen were both prominent on radio for a good number of years and Fields and McCarthy carried on a "feud" for some time, where they would trade insults. The two caricatures here follow suit in trading the same types of insult. Audiences of the time were well familiar with the whole thing and it gave the animators a solid frame of reference which made the gags even funnier.
Squeals tries to get the St. Bernard to chase the dish, but things don't go as planned and the magnet and a fair amount of alcohol wind up in the water, where the magnet winds up stuck on a fish who then gets drunk. The magnet attracts Squeals's ice skates and the fish lurches drunkenly under the ice, dragging Squeals into the middle of a figure-skating competition, which he wins.
Squeals wastes no time in filling the cup he receives as his prize with the remaining alcohol from the dog's keg, all the while gloating to the McCarthy caricature in the audience-until the cup, with its precious cargo, comes into the grip of the magnet and starts careening across the ice, to the sounds of laughter from a very satisfied McCarthy.
This short is available on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 4 and is well worth seeing. Recommended.
W. C. Fields was frequently used as a source for caricature because he was such a colorful character, both as part of his act (that being a cantankerous and cynical horse thief and a fair man with the bottle) and, to a significant degree, in reality (he really was a heavy drinker). Even the title of the short is a double-edged play on words, as the cartoon features a figure-skating contest and cracked ice is frequently used in mixing drinks.
Here, caricatured as a pig, named W.C. Squeals, he's seen a short time into the short, after some perfunctory gags which principally serve to set the atmosphere (it's cold, animals are skating, etc.) Squeals sees a crane fall through the ice and frantically calls for help. A St. Bernard shows up, rescues the bird and pours spirits into him, at which point Squeals develops a notable thirst and a need for "medicinal" help that only the keg can provide. Alas, the St. Bernard ignores his comically "heart-rending" appeals for the kindness of a stranger and Squeals decides that a feigned drowning and rescue is in order. The St. Bernard comes out, mixes a drink and then downs the toddy himself and leaves (a bit unsteadily). So Squeals resorts to a complicated scheme, involving a magnet and a metal dish filled with dog bones.
All through this sequence, Squeals is heckled from the audience by a disembodied voice patterned after Charlie McCarthy, Edgar Bergen's primary ventriloquist's dummy. Fields and Bergen were both prominent on radio for a good number of years and Fields and McCarthy carried on a "feud" for some time, where they would trade insults. The two caricatures here follow suit in trading the same types of insult. Audiences of the time were well familiar with the whole thing and it gave the animators a solid frame of reference which made the gags even funnier.
Squeals tries to get the St. Bernard to chase the dish, but things don't go as planned and the magnet and a fair amount of alcohol wind up in the water, where the magnet winds up stuck on a fish who then gets drunk. The magnet attracts Squeals's ice skates and the fish lurches drunkenly under the ice, dragging Squeals into the middle of a figure-skating competition, which he wins.
Squeals wastes no time in filling the cup he receives as his prize with the remaining alcohol from the dog's keg, all the while gloating to the McCarthy caricature in the audience-until the cup, with its precious cargo, comes into the grip of the magnet and starts careening across the ice, to the sounds of laughter from a very satisfied McCarthy.
This short is available on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 4 and is well worth seeing. Recommended.
