Buddys Trolley Troubles

Summary

Buddy is a motorman on the urban line: he leaves his home, whistling the tune of the song that he shall sing as he sets out on his run. Creatively employing a piece of his picket fence as a track, he drives his trolley car out of his shed. He stops for a large lady, whom he assists in boarding the car, & starts again before a male passenger can board: the gentleman chases the car, eventually catching up and winning a great deal of money upon dropping five cents. Once Buddys car has emptied, he picks up Cookie, which he accomplishes by extending the height of his streetcar by an accordion apparatus underneath the vehicle; of course, the detour obstructs traffic & attracts the unwelcome attention of an unfriendly traffic officer, who does not allow Buddy to speak, & upon Cookies defense of Buddy, punches Our Hero in the nose, commanding him to move on. Obeying, Buddy extends an arm-shaped stop signal from his car & drives, the signal knocking the officer on to his face. Buddy & Cookie continue to ride, and perilously outrun and then avoid a large locomotive. A prisoner, in a striped uniform, ball-and-chain at his ankle, stands in a ditch & hammers at his bounds with a large rock, to no effect: hearing Buddys trolley car approaching on the track that runs over the ditch, the prisoner throws his chain over the track & latches on to a branch (failing on first attempt.) The car compromises the chain, and the felon is free; Buddys car stops, & he steps out of the drivers seat to inspect the vehicle. The prisoner, meanwhile, seeing Cookie through the motorcar window, commandeers the drivers seat whilst Buddy is distracted; Cookie screams, Buddy expresses his indignation, but the villain knocks Our Hero backwards, leaving his sweetheart to yell for help. Buddy quickly regains sensibility, and takes to his control another vehicle, eventually grabbing on to the wire of the trolley car, kicking the thief in the face, twice, and then taking Cookie & swinging over to his emergency vehicle. The jailbreak soon sees that he is to collide with a stalled truck full of dynamite, and though the owner of the truck attempts to start his motor, it is no use and both streetcar & transport truck explode, leaving the owner of the latter quite scarred and dazed, & the prisoner dizzily seated on the ground of a pig pen: Buddy & Cookie step over to the helpless villain, and Buddy seals him in by extending the fence of the pen, & several piglets emerge just humorously to annoy the trumped bruiser.

Similarity to other shorts

Buddys Trolley Troubles is similar, in some respects, to other shorts: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, in 1927, starred in a cartoon called Trolley Troubles, in which he runs a streetcar; and an earlier Warner Bros. character called Foxy ran a trolley car during a long dream sequence in the Harman-Ising Merrie Melody Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!, in which he, amongst other things, rings his bell by means of a cat, operates car no. 13, picks up his sweetheart & helps a large lady passenger board.

Katz Beer

As Buddys car approaches Cookies building, we see a billboard advertising "Katz Beer," a reference to Ray Katz, Leon Schlesingers business assistant.