The Vacation Mirage is a 1960 Felix the Cat cartoon and the 71st episode of the made-for-TV Felix series, distributed by Trans-Lux and directed by Joe Oriolo.
One day, the cat decides to go on a vacation. He then looks up locations, and decides on a vacay at Desert Springs, so he gets his magic bag of tricks out, and changes it to a outdoor airplane, which flies in the air. Unfortunately, the Professor is wathcing, planning to spring his "Instant Mirage Making Machine" on him, noting that a desert, of all places, would be the perfect one. So the Professor get his own real airplane out, following Felix, till they actually get to the same desert. The Proffessor take his machine to a giant cluster of rocks, where he can hide out and do his deviltry with the mirage making machine.
First thing, is he makes a lake, which Felix mistakes for real, only to disappear. "Just a mirage." The Professor then makes some catci between Felix and his bag! Felix then turns around only to see the cacti, noting as Joe Oriolo pans out, that there's cacti him (as a familair Winston Sharples cue from the 1960 Paramount Pictures Modern Madcap cartoon, "Silly Science", directed by Seymour Kneitel, plays.) As we go from part one to two, the Professor says to us what has just happened for those just joining. Felix then decides to take off, and the Professor decides to help him. When Felix wants some soda, the Professor produces some "ice cold pop" on a cart, but when Felix grabs the bottles, everyhting turns into a billy goat, with Felix now holding the goat's horns. Felix then gets chased by the "goat" mirage (as another oftused Sharples cue from another 1960 "Madcap","Trigger Treat", is heard), which then disappears. "Another mirage". He then walks ahead, as the Professor works his mahcine to produce "A ghost town", with a real ghost, a giant spook who pops out and warns Felix that he doesn't take kindly to him...as a stranger, and shoot..."A slow BULLETT?" Felix then makes a U-turn toward the "Western Saloon" which the bullett destroys (though as a "Mirage" and "ghost" bullet, would it really destroy anything?). Felix then walks the other way, only to inspire the mischievious Professor to create a "City Hall". Naturally Felix's skepptical, but then finds out that "it's solid?" He then walks up, only for it to fade, but for Felix to fall on real catci, then but out by the "image" catci from earlier, where he finds his magic bag of tricks (which, as mentioned, the audience alreayd would know.) The Professor is ticked off about this, then noticing Felix taking out in another plane made form the bag, the crazy doctor makes himself and the machine invisible, only for the cat in the polkane to bump it, causing them to be automatically visible, whereupon the machine now makes random images. The proffessor cals out to Felix, who now notices who's caused it. "Hahaha!"
Tropes:
- Motive Decay: In most of the series, Professor's goal is simply to steal Felix's bag, but in this episode, he separates Felix from the Magic Bag, but then spends the rest of the episode sadistically tormenting Felix with his barrage of realistic mirages instead of simply taking the bag and leaving while Felix is distracted by the mirages.
- Near-Villain Victory: Professor comes very close to defeating Felix in this episode, but Felix manages to win by sheer dumb luck.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: This is one of the few episodes in the series where Professor gets his act together and shows that he can be a legitimate threat to Felix. He has the deck completely stacked against Felix throughout the episode thanks to his Mirage Maker, and the cat only manages to beat him by luck.
- Reality Warper: In this episode, Felix decides to take a vacation to the desert, but the Professor has built a Mirage Maker device that is a very powerful device—despite it being an illusion maker, the illusions it creates are just as convincing as the real thing, and Professor uses it throughout the episode to separate Felix from his bag and then torment him to his hearts content. Fortunately, Felix finds his bag and when he turns it into a plane and flies off, he unwittingly crashes into the Mirage Maker (which Professor had turned invisible) which makes it go haywire and swamp Professor with dozens of illusions surrounding him.
