Directed by Tex Avery, "Thugs with Dirty Mugs" is an excellent cartoon parody of film noir. Plenty of sight gags and laughter abound as the vicious gangster "Killer Diller" (a bulldog caricature of Edward G. Robinson) and his mob become involved in a bank crime wave. Only the meekest little character can assist police dog "Flat-Foot Flanigan with a Floy Floy" (the name being a takeoff of a popular song) in cracking the case.Here are my favorite sequences from "Thugs with Dirty Mugs" (don't read on if you haven't yet seen this cartoon). Characteristic of director Tex Avery, Killer Diller and his gang angrily acknowledge a meek little man (wonderfully voiced by Mel Blanc) in the "theatre" audience, and Flanigan literally breaks through the split line separating himself and a secret agent while they converse by telephone. I also love how Killer sticks up a telephone and utilizes the Worst National Bank as a pinball machine. Not to mention the hilarious "Take that, you rat!" scene, as well as the scoring of the popular song "Jeepers Creepers" in a minor key while the gang robs the Worst National Bank and then rubs out the numerical figure on the bank assets sign."Thugs with Dirty Mugs" is a terrific cartoon that can be found on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 3 Disc 2, with an insightful commentary by contemporary animation director Greg Ford.

I don't think Tex Avery directed a bad cartoon. While this one isn't one of my absolute favorites, it's still a very good cartoon (which basically makes it a cartoon that a lot of directors would be pleased to have considered as one of their best). I want to discuss some of the specific details here, so here there be spoilers: The title strikes me as a play on the movie title Angels With Dirty Faces, the main caricature is one of Edward G. Robinson and the short is a very good send-up of the gangster movies that were popular in the 1930s. But it's clearly a Tex Avery short first and foremost. When a police officer is shown in silhouette appearing to strike someone and saying, "Take that you rat! And that! And that!" and the picture becomes clear that he's actually throwing cheese to a rat sitting on a stool, that's an Avery moment. Then the officer says, "That's all you get-I need the rest for my lunch!" and the rat begins to throw a tantrum and cry! This short is full of those types of gags, from beginning to end, though they don't quite come quite as fast and furious as they would later on in his career. Call it a formative Avery-he was beginning to find his style a bit more around this time. Throughout the cartoon, he takes various conventions of film in general and the gangster genre in particular and turns them on their ear. Newspaper headlines spin in with headlines which are usually funny while ostensibly advancing the "plot", a movie theater patron who came in in the middle of the picture tries to get up and leave, only to be ordered back to his seat by "Killer" and then informs the police what the "Killer" has planned because he's already seen the ending! The final newspaper headline and closing gags are priceless! This short is available on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 3 and is well worth getting. Recommended.

Excellent spoof of the gangster genre of its day! Very fast-paced and funny -- perhaps a bit slower in pace than, say, the "gasping-for-air-by-the-end" pace of Bob Clampett, but that in and of itself is a pace matched by few, with the possible exception of Frank Tashlin. On the whole, there are plenty of Avery trademarks and gags throughout, from the great split-screen-gag to the great audience member silhouette moments, where an apparent audience member directly addresses characters in the film. Avery's claim to fame, of course, was that he was responsible for "breaking the fourth wall," acknowledging the presence of the audience and, in many cases, trying to incorporate the audience within the actual plot via various signs and, of course, the silhouettes. I'd love to see some of these silhouette scenes on a big screen someday, as they look a bit odd on an enclosed TV screen now where proportions are concerned, but it's still brilliant.Interestingly enough, Avery's "Gonna pin it on ya, see? Pin it on ya!"-gag resurfaces some seven years later in Clampett's "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery" -- proof positive that, long after Tex Avery was gone from the Warner Brothers studio, making the raucous MGM-cartoons he is now more famous for, he was hardly forgotten by his Warner pupils.Very worth checking out, if one is able.

I never knew movie parody was developed this well in 1939, but this was a great send-up on gangster films of the era. This was shown on TCM before an airing of Edward G. Robinson's classic of 1931, Little Caeser. This cartoon complimented the film very well. Of course, this cartoon is a tour de force for Tex Avery. Very little of the humor seems dated in 2004, or is sophisticated enough to still have lots of appreciation. One exception was the imitation Fred Allen. However, this one needs to be seen more often as it is one of Tex Avery's best! It gets a 9/10. This is humour you didn't see in the 1970's, much less the late '30's.