The Old Shell Game is a 1948 Noveltoons cartoon directed by Seymour Kneitel and Dave Tendlar.
Plot[]
Wolfie tries to seek out alternative meat, first setting his sights on a young calf. But the bull in charge of the pasture sees red, and Wolfie takes the butt of his attack. Wolfie calls this a “grave situation”, tightening his belt to a setting reading “Starving” – one notch before a final belt-hole depicting a grave and tombstone. Wolfie will settle for any kind of steak – even stooping to the level of an old turtle steak, when he spots a turtle reclining along the side of the road, playing a solitaire game of checkers against himself atop his inverted shell. Simply carrying off the turtle isn’t such a hot idea, as Wolfie receives a painful chomp on the nose from the turtle’s snapping jaws. So, a clever trap is in order, with Wolfie casting a fishing line, the end of which splots into four separate lines with corks tied on each end. A skillful cast pops corks into the arm and feet holes of the turtle’s shell, preventing his locomotion. Wolfie reels in, then consults a cookbook for how to prepare his prize. Foremost instruction is, remove turtle from shell. Easier said than done.
Wolfie removes the corks from the turtle shell, then reaches one hand into a hole, expecting to merely pull the turtle out. His fingers get caught in a mousetrap. He reaches in again, and begins to discover an array of unexpected objects stored within the shell. A long string of paper dolls. A line of nautical signal flags. A clothesline of drying laundry. And, the proverbial kitchen sink. Wolfie keeps tugging on the continuing rope, while the hands of the turtle emerge from another shell hole, tying the other end of the rope to one of Wolfie’s feet. Wolfie pulls his own leg through the shell, clamps a pair of sandwich slices around it from a loaf of bread, and takes a sizeable bite. Boy, that hurt! Wolfie shakes the shell vigorously, then hears what sounds like the pounding of waves along a shore. “It sounds just like ocean waves in there”, says Wolfie. Suddenly, Wolfie is deluged by an actual wave of water pouting out of the shell. “See?”, concludes Wolfie to the audience. An ice cream wagon passes the scene. Wolfie orders an ice cream bar, and the turtle orders one of a different flavor, then pops back into his shell, leaving Wolfie to pay for both. Wolfie pulls a gun on the turtle shell, announcing, “If ya don’t come out when I counts three, I’ll shoot.” Wolfie shuts his eyes in anticipation of the blast, and starts to count. The shell parts in two, its top half pivoting upwards, to reveal a telescoping artillery cannon emerging from the shell, extending to envelop Wolfie’s gun and entire arm. The turtle’s head pops out the top of the shell as if he were in the command cockpit of a tank, and the turtle sounds the last number “THREE”, then fires. Wolfie is launched across a country mile of terrain, catapulted back by a springy tree, and lands inside one of the holes of the shell. Wolfie’s head, arms and feet emerge through the shell holes – then suddenly, he is painfully ejected from his new residence, with the turtle’s head and limbs emerging from the holes, carrying a bent pin with which Wolfie was speared to eject him. “Trifle crowded, don’cha think?” remarks the turtle to Wolfie.
Wolfie tries to force his way back inside, only getting his head back in – then reacts in shock at what he sees. From a vantage point within the shell, we see Wolfie’s head peering into a deep interior tunnel with traun tracks leading within – and out of the darkness emerges a subway car, headed straight toward Wolfie. BAM! Wolfie is knocked out of the shell and into the side of a tree trunk, muttering to the audience, “I don’t believe it!” The Wolf is through fooling around, and, unlike the later-to-be Katnip, decides to do just not what the book says. He lassos the turtle shell with a rope, and tosses the whole thing into a boiling pot of water. The turtle’s head emerges perspiring, shocked to find where he is, and the sight of Wolfie cutting carrots to fill the pot. In a surprise ending, the camera pans away from this scene to the far right, as one side of the entire paper background is folded forward, by a character on another background underneath. The new character is a rabbit, dressed in track-and-field garb and wearing a racing number across his chest, standing before a title card on the second-level background, reading “The Tortoise and the Hare”. The rabbit calls out to the turtle, “Hey, Murgatroyd! Where ‘ya been?” The camera returns to the ppt, where the turtle apologizes to Wolfie, “Pardon Me. I’m in the wrong picture.” The turtle leaps out of the pot, joining the rabbit and disappearing with him into the second cartoon world below. Wolfie’s eyes pop out at losing his lunch, and he begins to cry bitterly while prone on the ground, wailing that he’s got to eat. His tears fall on a worm emerging from a hole, who reappears carrying an umbrella and wearing a derby. “MEAT!”, shouts Wolfie at spying the worm, and dives underground after him, tunneling for miles across a background, uprooting many distant trees in the process.[2]
Voice cast[]
- Jack Mercer - Tim Turtle, Ice cream vendor
- Sid Raymond - Wolfie, Hare
Availability[]
- Blu-ray - Noveltoons Original Classics (2019; Thunderbean Animation)
Trivia[]
- This is Wolfie's first appearance without Blackie.
- The ending music cue from Naughty But Mice is used.
- This cartoon fell into the public domain in the United States in 1976 due to National Telefilm Associates not renewing the copyright on time.
References[]
External links[]
The Old Shell Game at the Internet Movie Database
The Old Shell Game at the Internet Animation Database
