Aviation Vacation

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Airdate:
2 August 1941

MPAA Number:	Production Number:
6976	MM-24-10^[1]

10 January 1969^[2]

Crew

Sidney Sutherland
Robert McKimson (uncredited)
Rod Scribner (uncredited)^[3]
Virgil Ross (uncredited)^[4]
Rev Chaney (uncredited)^[5]

Aviation Vacation is a 1941 Merrie Melodies short directed by Tex Avery.

A small airplane takes its passengers on a world tour. Some excerpts:

The plane, as well as its shadow, are remarkably flexible. The plane takes off like a bird, running and jumping and flapping its wings. The plane's shadow dodges ground-level obstacles.
The plane passes Mount Rushmore, which includes the two major candidates from the 1940 election, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Wendell Wilkie.
In Ireland, a tenor sings "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling", while a (cartooned) stray hair keeps appearing in the frame, as if stuck in the projector. The Irishman abruptly stops singing and yells at the top of his lungs to the projectionist, "Hey, you, up there! Get that hair out of here!"
In "Darkest Africa", natives are listening to jungle drumbeats which are used for communication. One native asks another what the drums are saying, and the second native responds, "Boom-ditty, boom-ditty, boom-boom-boom-boom!"
Also in Africa, a native is using a blowgun, but he was merely aiming at a practice target. His target calls him a "terrible shot".
A group of ostriches hide their heads in the sand. Another ostrich arrives, perplexed, wondering where everyone went.
A series of cocoons open up, all of them producing beautiful butterflies, except for a weak and scrawny one: "Well, I've been sick!"
The plane becomes lost in fog while returning to New York City. When the fog finally clears, the plane is attached to a carousel ride.

Both the USA and EU Turner prints and airings of this cartoon on Cartoon Network, its sister channel Boomerang, and as of 2021, MeTV, had two entire racial stereotype scenes cut.
- One scene has an African native using a blowgun. It is revealed he was merely aiming at a practice target. A second native comments, "Terrible shot, Joe."
- The other scene shows African natives pounding their drums and making signals. One native asks another, "Uh, what do he say?" The other native says (imitating drum sound), "Uh, he say, uh, 'Boom-ditty-boom-ditty-boom-boom-boom-boom, ditty-boom-ditty-boom-ditty-boom-boom-boom-boom'."^[6]

The projector hair joke was later reused in Avery's cartoon "Magical Maestro" (1952).
The "Well, I've been sick," line was used previously in 1940's "Wacky Wild Life" and later in the record "Porky Pig in Africa". A variant, "Aw, he's been sick," is used in "Foney Fables". Tex would reuse the joke in two of his MGM cartoons, "Slap Happy Lion" and "King-Size Canary".
As the plane circles the carousel, "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" is playing. In this unique instance for a WB cartoon, the Looney Tunes theme segues into the Merrie Melodies theme at iris-out.
MeTV aired a previously unreleased restored print of the cartoon on "Toon In with Me".
On the restored print that aired on MeTV, there is no WARNER BROS. banner above the WB shield and the African Native scenes were cut.
Despite leaving before its release, this is the only cartoon where Tex is credited under supervision. The other cartoons which came out after this, "All This and Rabbit Stew" and "The Bug Parade", do not have him credited.
Vitaphone release number: 91