Cinderella Meets Fella is a 1938 Merrie Melodies cartoon, directed by Tex Avery.
Plot wise, the cartoon is a satire of the classic fairy tale of Cinderella, but with Tex Avery's brand of gags sandwiched in. His recurring bit player Egghead stands in as Cinderella's love interest.
Surprisingly, it has never been re-issued on a Looney Tunes DVD compilation, but it can be found as a bonus with some Warner Bros. movie releases and is available on HBO Max.
Tropes:
- Bait-and-Switch: Prince Charming is introduced with great fanfare, and it turns out to be Egghead laughing like a goofball.
- Born in the Theater: The ending gag where Cinderella is watching the cartoon with the audience.
- Captain Obvious: After Cinderella runs off, Egghead desperately searches for her and asks where she could be. He stumbles upon her home, which has several "Cinderella's House" signs.
- Fractured Fairy Tale: It's a parody of the classic story of Cinderella.
- Inept Mage: The Fairy Godmother does fine with Cinderella's dress, but her attempt to make a coachman with a horse-drawn carriage initially result in Santa Claus and his reindeer and then a cowboy and a stagecoach. The Fairy Godmother opts to just go with that last one.
- Lampshade Hanging: In Cinderella's house, Egghead looks all over for her. When he's about to check the cuckoo clock, several birds pop out and point out she's obviously not gonna be in there.
- Larynx Dissonance: When Cinderella is calling the police, she talks to them normally at first, but before she hangs up, she yells "GO GET HER, BOYS!" in a man's voice.
- Love at First Sight: When Egghead sees Cinderella after his big entrance.
- Purely Aesthetic Era: Fast food restaurants and ads for them, telephones, and movie theaters are present in the fairy tale setting.
- Rotoscoping: Used to animate Cinderella when she's outside of the cartoon in the end.
- Shout-Out:
- At one point, the Stepsisters quote Jimmy Fiedlier's 'And I do mean YOU!' catchphrase.
- The “no squat, no squint, no stoop” line is a reference to an old Philco radio advertisement slogan.
- "Look, fellas, I'm dancin'!" is the first of the Dead End kids films, Dead End (1937).
- Show Within a Show: For the cartoons ending gag, Cinderella runs off from Egghead, but he finds a note saying that she went to watch a Warner Bros. picture. Said picture turns out to be the cartoon itself, and she quickly runs back into the cartoon and reunites with Egghead. The two then exit the cartoon through the Iris Out to join the movie theater's audience.
- Standard Snippet: The William Tell Overture is used early in the cartoon.
- Stock Footage: The brief scene of the police signal department is reused from one of Tex's earlier Porky Pig cartoons, The Blow Out (1936).
- The Television Talks Back: Done with a radio (as the cartoon predates Television).Cinderella: Gee, I hope they find her.
Radio: Don't worry, lady. We'll search every joint till we do. - Whole-Plot Reference: Since it's a satire of Cinderella, it pretty much uses the same plot, but with gags sandwiched in to undermine the fairy tale atmosphere.
