Do It Yourself Monster Book is a 1959 Felix the Cat cartoon and the 7th episode of the Felix the Cat (Joe Oriolo) series.
Professor is at his lab overlooking a chart for his plan called Operation Felix and how he hasn't had any successes with catching him yet. Professor whacks himself with a hammer to think of something, and he comes up with a plan—he'll disguise himself to catch Felix and his Magic Bag. He rings a bell for his robot to find him a book of disguises, eventually settling on the Do It Yourself Monster Book. Professor skims through it and finds a disguise called Dinah the Dinosaur, and gets right to work making a giant sized costume based on it, feeding the page into the computer and creating a costume right away. Later, Felix is strolling along when he meets "Dinah". Felix is unsure of whether to trust the dinosaur, but when "she" sings a sad little rhyme, Felix feels bad for the dinosaur and wipes her tears with handkerchief. "Dinah" gives Felix an olive branch, but tries to whack him with a hammer while he's distracted, which Felix narrowly dodges. Felix runs away from the dinosaur, trying to hide behind a tree, only for her to appear behind him, so he tries climbing up a tree, but it turns out to be Dinah's leg. Felix tries running down her spine, but her spikes turn into an escalator and bring Felix face to face with her. Felix leaps away into a nearby tree, and the dinosaur tries to eat it to catch him, only to find the cat is gone. Felix sneaks away nearby, and hides in a log. Dinah tries searching through it, and turns her spines into a buzzsaw to cut through it, forcing Felix to emerge from it.
The dinosaur cuts the log in half, shaving off the fur of Felix's back but otherwise leaving him unharmed. Dinah stomps towards Felix and the cat runs away, hiding behind a tree and then hiding behind three rocks, where Felix somehow ends up seeing himself in two different spots. Dinah picks up the rocks and finds a hole beneath one of them, and looks inside. Felix attacks from the inside with a boxing glove on a spring. Dinah reaches inside to grab Felix, but Felix sets a false teeth trap for her, which bites her hand. Dinah gets creative and stomps the ground, forcing Felix out of the hole and grabbing him, sending him rolling down her spine and almost flying into her mouth. Felix has enough and turns his Magic Bag into a mini-airplane, flying off. He has trouble flying it for a moment, but he uses his tail as a rotor to keep it balanced. Back on the ground, Professor tears off the head of the Dinah disguise and beats himself up—only for the costume itself to come to life and throw him into the ground, then kicking him into the ocean nearby. Professor, standing in the water, thinks about how his operation is sunk, and says "It matters not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." Nearby, Felix is standing on a raft and says "Righty-O!" and laughs as the cartoon irises out.
Tropes:
- Blooper: When Felix is sneaking away from Dinah, the cycle is accidentally shot in a way that it makes it look like Felix is walking on air above the ground.
- Deranged Animation: Jim Tyer animates this episode in his usual trademark style, resulting in some very bizarre drawings of Felix (such as the Cheshire Cat like grin he has in the pic above).
- Extendo Boxing Glove: Felix uses this to attack Dinah while hiding inside a hole.
- Full-Body Disguise: Professor's method of becoming "Dinah."
- Larynx Dissonance: The Professor's attempt at a feminine voice for "Dinah" comes off sounding a lot like the falsetto voice Jack Mercer (who did all the voices here) uses for Felix.
- Literal Ass-Kicking: The Dinah costume comes to life and kicks Professor into the nearby water in the ending.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Professor in the dinosaur costume immediately appears behind a tree Felix is hiding behind when he first runs away from him, and again when Felix tries climbing up a tree and finds out it's the leg of the dinosaur.
- Shout-Out: When "Dinah" gets bitten by the false teeth trap, she remarks "My, what big teeth you have!"
- Stock Footage: Felix and Professor's walk cycles and a brief scene of the robot are reused from "The Magic Bag".
- Visual Pun: At one point, "Dinah" literally hands Felix a branch with olives on it.note
