Forty Winks is a 1930 Felix the Cat cartoon, and one of the last episodes of the B&W Felix the Cat cartoons. It is directed by Otto Messmer, produced by Pat Sullivan and distributed by Copley Pictures Corporation.
The cartoon starts with Felix conducting a choir of singing cats on top of a building late one night. A man in an apartment is awakened by their singing, and angrily throws a lamp at them like a bowling ball, knocking them all over. The cats laugh it off, and Felix whips out a flute, playing "Turkey in the Straw" as the cats get back to dancing. The man has fallen asleep again, but the music notes of Felix's music fly into his throat and choke him, waking him up again. He grabs a sprayer full of ether and shoots it at the cats, knocking them out. Felix, now dazed, takes the elevator downstairs and lies down on the couch. Just then, a baby wakes up and starts whining, which wakes up Felix. Felix tries to get the baby to go to sleep, briefly silencing the kid with a milk bottle that the ward devours whole. Felix gets creative and grabs a wine glass, which he spills and turns into a trumpet. After playing a few notes, Felix turns his tail into a flute, which makes a few toy soldiers come to life and march around. One of the toys shoots a cannon at a painting of a sailboat nearby, causing it to sink. The baby laughs and wants to try out the toy cannon. Felix refuses, but the baby cries, so he hands it over to him—only for the baby to shoot Felix right in the back with it. Felix dodges the cannon blasts, and turns the bullet holes in the wall into roller skates for himself. Felix goes outside and climbs up a telephone pole, resting in a pair of pants hanging from a clothesline. As Felix falls asleep, the saw and log he's dreaming of cuts through the clothesline, sending Felix plummeting to the ground. Felix runs around in the pants, eventually freeing himself from them and kicking them away.
Later on, Felix is still looking for a place to rest. He sees a doghouse nearby, so he sneaks through a hole in the fence and goes inside it to sleep, only for a dog to kick him out and chase him over the fence. Felix is persistent though—he sees a little opening on the doghouse, and blows into it, sending the dog flying out of it. Felix climbs inside and seals off the door. The dog starts crying, which ends up flooding his backyard and sends the doghouse drifting away as he swims after it. Felix quickly finds out what's going on, and thinks about how to get out of his predicament. He thinks up two exclamation marks, which he attaches to his tail and turns into a propeller, which causes him and the roof of the doghouse to fly away through some clouds. Felix takes a moment to look back, wave and laugh as his head bumps into a cloud. He almost lands, but is kept aloft in mid-air by a hippos snoring. Felix decides to go to sleep there, but the hippo yawns, which causes Felix to fall into his mouth. The hippo is awoken by this, spits out Felix and begins chasing him. Felix is cornered on a cliff, but he sees another cliff nearby. To create a bridge, Felix pulls out a gun and lines up a bunch of bullets in several shots, allowing him to safely cross. Felix tickles the hippo with the bullet bridge, which distracts the animal from the fact that the cliff is giving out from his weight. The hippo falls down below, but it ends up catapulting a leopard up to Felix, and the two cats begin fighting each other. Felix emerges victorious, and he turns the leopard's body into a bed for himself. Felix finally gets some well earned sleep as the cartoon irises out.
Tropes:
- Bratty Half-Pint: The baby that keeps Felix awake is quite a brat.
- Cartoon Bug-Sprayer: The man in the apartment uses this to spray Ether on the cats to knock them out.
- Cartoony Tail: Felix turns his tail into a flute in order to make toy soldiers march for the baby.
- Catching Some Z's: Felix snores z letters when he falls asleep on the couch.
- Crying a River: After Felix locks the dog out of his own doghouse, the poor canine weeps so hysterically that soon the backyard is flooded by his tears, and his doghouse floats away.
- Standard Snippet: Early in the cartoon, Felix plays "Turkey in the Straw" on a flute.
