Magical Maestro
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Magical Maestro is a 1952 animated short film which tells the story of an opera singer who spurns a magician, who takes his revenge during the former's performance. It stars the voices of Daws Butler and Carlos Ramírez.
The movie was written by Rich Hogan and directed by Tex Avery. It has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
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[edit] Plot
Mysto the Magician appeals to a snobbish opera singer, the Great Poochini (a pun on opera composer Giacomo Puccini), to let him perform an opening act at the show that night. Mysto's tricks primarily come from his magic wand, which can summon flowers and rabbits. Poochini kicks Mysto out the door.
Mysto sees a poster for the performance and is struck with inspiration—he freezes the conductor, steals his tuxedo, nose, and facial hair, then takes his place in front of the orchestra to conduct the Great Poochini.
During the performance in which Poochini sings Largo al factotum from Rossini's The Barber of Seville, Mysto unleashes a variety of tricks upon Poochini with his magic wand. He begins by summoning rabbits and flowers. Then he puts Poochini in a ballet tutu. Mysto's revenge gets more brutal as he throws a cymbol on Poochini's head, turning him Chinese (see below), then transforming him into a country singer. After levitating Poochini to the ceiling and slamming him down to the stage, Mysto turns him into a square dance caller. Poochini actually continues his performance for a good 20 seconds after this without interuption, except for the "hair gag" (see below). Poochini is then transformed into a Shirley Temple–esque child, then a Carmen Miranda–looking singer (complete with a rabbit accompanying her on guitar). Unexpectedly, an audience member gets into the act when he sprays ink on Poochini and drops an anvil on his head (see below). A rabbit hoses Poochini off and the fun continues as he is transformed into a Hawaiian singer with two rabbits for harmony. Mysto's plan comes to an end when Poochini spots his wig falling off. Mysto makes a run for it, but Poochini grabs the magic wand, puts Mysto on stage, and unleashes the same gimmicks on the hapless magician.
[edit] Trivia
The concept of cartoons with insinuating situations is hardly new—Tex Avery especially featured a few quick jokes of this nature in his cartoons. Magical Maestro, for example, shows Poochini with a male and female rabbit on each arm. He lowers his arms and when he raises them again, he now has a dozen baby rabbits on them.
This cartoon features a rather brilliant gimmick only seen in Tex Avery films, the "hair gag". Because cartoons were shown originally in movie theatres, it was not uncommon for a hair to get caught in the reel or in the projector. Sometimes it would skitter across the projection light, resulting in a gigantic hair appearing on the movie screen. Avery made many a projectionist nuts by simulating one of these random hairs in this and a couple of other cartoons. In this cartoon, the opera singer pauses mid-song to pluck the offending hair from the film and tosses it aside, one of Avery's many ways of his characters breaking the fourth wall.
This cartoon was presented uncut until the late 1990's, when Cartoon Network edited out segments considered to be offensive. The two segments cut out of the present airing are:
- The opera singer is transformed into a Chinese stereotype when a cymbal is thrown on his head, simulating the coolie hat which is wide and flat, with a point in the top.
- An irritated audience member in a box seat right above the stage shows his distaste for the performance by spraying ink from a pen into the singer's face, leaving him looking like a blackface singer in the style of The Ink Spots. When this doesn't shut the singer up, the audience member drops an anvil on the singer's head, squashing him down and rendering him with a deeper voice. This cut was clearly made as it could be considered offensive to African Americans.
[edit] Influence
The "hair gag" would later be used by English comedian Benny Hill in the closing chase sequence of his April 25, 1984 show. As he is being chased by medical staff and an ambulance in and around a hospital area, he notices a hair moving around the bottom right corner of the screen, and at a certain point stops his pursuers long enough for him to pluck the hair out before the chase resumes.
