Buddys Bearcats

Summary

We come to a sign that announces "Baseball to-day: Buddys Bearcats vs. Battling Bruisers." Below, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of fans rush into the ball park; patrons buy tickets & walk through a turnstile. One particularly large man is called back to the ticket window after purchasing his admission & is measured by the operator of the window: "Two seats!" the ticket salesman declares. The man happily obliges and purchases a second ticket for himself! Two tall, bearded gentlemen (in top hats, no less), one holding the shoulders of the other in front, compress themselves, & sneak, with impunity, under the turnstile and the nose of the ticket salesman. A young man with light, curly hair observes the park from without through a crack in the fence and says: "Its Buddy!" We then see Our Hero, grandly bearing the attire of his team & cheerfully tossing a ball about his shoulders & chest. Two other men watch through holes in the fence: as a gag, ones hole in the fence is so much higher than the others, making viewing difficult, unless one simply reaches up and pulls down the high hole, thereby lowering it & raising the others hole, to the inconvenience of the other. A dog sits beneath the same curly-haired man from before, and another fellow uses the canines tail as a crank that curves the dogs midsection upwards, allowing the young man a far better view of the field (or simply a chance to leap over the fence.) An apparently Scotch couple inflates a set of bagpipes, then ties them, as an hot air balloon, to a drum, which serves as a platform, that the couple might float in the air & leap over the fence as well. The fans sway about in the stands, and an unusually blond Cookie greets Buddy & vice versa. Buddy uses a baseball to play a set of bats as though they were a xylophone, then catches the ball in his back pocket. A food vendor named Willie King sings about his hot dogs; a whimsical drink vendor walks the stands, sends a soda pop over to a young patron by means of a little propeller. A very musical announcer introduces us to the Battling Bruisers, the team on his right; and on his left, "the greatest team the world has ever seen: Buddy and his Bearcats." The game begins, narrated by a parody of Joe E. Brown, who swallows a ball thrown, in his direction, by Buddy. Buddy rubs his hands with dirt; a Bruiser squirts oil under his arms, and throws a pitch to Buddy, who hits the ball and runs (and skates) to base. The fans are very pleased. In the next scene, Buddy throws a tricky ball to a Bruiser, who can not seem to hit it; he throws down his bat, blows air (through a bug spray apparatus) at the ball that it falls (as would a dying fly), and simply picks it up, tosses it into the air, & hits it. An outfielder catches the ball. The score, we see in the next scene, stands at forty-nine to forty-seven. The people want Buddy! But Our Hero, behind the scenes, is all too nervous to emerge & play; alone, he genuflects, and appears, for a moment, to pray. Cookie approaches him and tells him of the great clamor for him from the spectators: Buddy is bashfully convinced. Buddy gladly takes the bat from another player (who looks like a taller, balder version of Buddy), hits a ball thrown by a maniacally laughing, mustachioed Bruiser, & runs about the diamond, cheered on by Cookie, who stands at base. The game is won, & the two sweethearts, embracing, are buried in a deluge of the hats of happy fans.

Hot dog vendor

Willie King, the concession stand owner, played by Billy Bletcher, sings an original song by Norman Spencer, the musical director of the short. In the history of Warner Bros. cartoons, Willie King was, in fact, a concession stand owner who operated his business outside Leon Schlesingers studio.

Cookie in this short

This is the first of but a few Buddy shorts in which Buddys sweetheart Cookie has blond, braided hair (as contrasted with her usual black.) This would seem to be characteristic only of those Buddy cartoons supervised by Jack King, though not all of them.