Each Dawn I Crow

Some months back I did a review of the movie Each Dawn I Die, which I have on DVD courtesy of a four-film James Cagney box set. One of the extras on that DVDis the animated short Each Dawn I Crow, so recently, I sat down to watch it.

It's only the title that's a play on the original Cagney movie; the rest of the cartoon has nothing to do with it. In many ways this is a lesser Merrie Melodies, with Elmer Fudd being the only character from the normal canon. The other main character, and the one who crows, is John the Rooster. He wakes up one morning to an amusing sight gag:



As he's strutting around the barnyard, an unseen narrator tells him that Elmer is sharpening his axe, in preparation for an important and dirty job tomorrow, which can only mean that Fudd is going to chop off John's head for Sunday chicken dinner. This obviously terrifies poor John, who tries everything he can to stop Elmer. In his nervousness, he even becomes a chain-smoker:



Of course, we know that Elmer isn't really planning to kill John. But it's mildly fun watching John come up with all sorts of schemes to prevent Elmer from realizing it's Sunday morning, which unsurprisingly are unsuccessful. Some of them we've seen before, some are rarer. There's also a twist ending, although one that isn't so surprising.

Each Dawn I Crow certainly isn't the greatest cartoon short ever made, but as an extra on a DVD, it's nice to see especially since TCM doesn't really show cartoons any more outside the Saturday matinee block.