. . . to warn the budding Flowers of American Maidenhood that an element of sexual deviancy lurked deep in the pool of U.S. males. Warner Bros.' "Looney" animators do their best to cancel out Steinbeck's caution by transforming the Nobel Prize-winning novelist's too-heavy petter "Lennie" into pervert panda "Benny" in this wrong-headed parody, HOPPY-GO-LUCKY. "If you get me angry, I'll do mean things to you--like rub your fur the wrong way," Benny warns Warner's feline animated short regular Sylvester, who stands in for Steinbeck's "George" here. (LITERARY SPOILER:) In the original story, Lennie rubs his "pet" mouse's fur so hard the wrong way that it dies. After he does the same thing to a young lady, George has to Euthanize Lennie. In this brief cartoon, Sylvester tries to crush Benny's brains with a sledge hammer, but the business end of this tool crumbles to dust upon impact. This bit of action leads to a bevy of dismembered female mannequins. Any way you look at it, this short would have been better titled BENNY-SO-KLUTSY (THAT HE'LL KILL YA).
Review of Hoppy-Go-Lucky
