"Attention please! Due to a shortage of players, Bobo will bat for the entire team!"
"Gone Batty" is a 1954 Looney Tunes cartoon by Robert McKimson which follows up his 1947 cartoon Hobo Bobo.
It's the Baseball Championship between the heavily favored surly and husky Greenville Goons, and the smaller and meek Sweetwater Shnooks. The bigger Goons easily bully around the Shnooks both in and out of the game, knocking several of their players out of the game, and building a ridiculous 167-0 lead. All hope seems lost for the Shnooks.
In a desperate move, the Shnooks' manager calls upon the team mascot Bobo, a small baby elephant to finish the game. Can Bobo pull off the win?
"Gone Batty" provides examples of:
- Animal Athlete Loophole: The Goons protest Bobo playing the game for the Shnooks, but the Umpire says that there is no rule in the Baseball rulebook that says an elephant can't play.Umpire: There's nothing in the rulebook that says an elephant can't pitch! NOW PLAY BALL!
- Artistic License – Sports: The game should've been called after the first inning, but there is apparently no mercy rule.
- Big "SHUT UP!": The Goons protest Bobo being put in the game, while the Umpire checks the rule book. As they keep talking, he ends up shouting, "QUIET!"
- Bowdlerization: An unusual cut occurs when this cartoon aired on a New York local TV station called WNEWnote : The Schnooks' base runner, the Goons' catcher, and the umpire are arguing safe-versus-out. The catcher settles the question by clobbering the base runner with a bat (after lightly tapping him out with said bat). The umpire grimaces and says, "Yeesh, NOW he's out!" On WNEW airings, the umpire's line "Yeesh, NOW he's out" was muted, yet the actual violence was left intact and the line can still be deciphered by those who can lip-read (whether or not they're deaf) or, at the very least, knows the punchline to that joke.
- Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: The Greenville Goons play dirty by any means necessary, even when it isn't needed.
- Elongating Arm Gag: When the Goons shackle Bobo before striking a home run, Bobo has to stretch out his trunk to run all four bases.
- Expy: The Greenville Goons are clearly one for the Gas House Gorillas, a very similar kind of team in the same sport, from Baseball Bugs (1946). A group of husky, cigar-smoking bullies who serve as the antagonists of the short.
- Godzilla Threshold: Down 167-0 in the ninth inning and all of your players knocked out? Yeah, send in the mascot. It can't possibly get any worse.
- Gory Discretion Shot: The Goon catcher beats a Shnook with the bat when he slides into home plate to get him "out". When the umpire says he isn't "out", the Goon delivers a solid shot to finish the job...Umpire: Oooh. Now he's out...
- Hoist by His Own Petard:
- The Goon pitcher and catcher try to thwart Bobo by rigging the baseball with an explosive. Bobo smartly avoids hitting the ball, causing the catcher to get blasted instead.
- The Goons pull out a bazooka to fire a flurry of pitches at Bobo to get him out, but the little guy hits all of them, sending them all into the outfield, screwing up the Goons' outfielders, and driving in a metric ton of runs for the Shnooks.
- Literal Metaphor:
- A Goon batter brags about "clearing the bench". He does it literally by deliberately hitting the ball at the Shnooks' bench and knocking out several players at once.
- In the last scene, the Shnooks' team owner praises Bobo's amazing skill as a ball player, the Manager comments that the best part is that Bobo "works for peanuts". Cue Bobo enjoying a mound of literal peanuts as the short ends.
- Major Injury Underreaction: The Shnook who complained about a strike being called a foul has some nerves of steel after getting ferociously smacked by a Goon.Umpire: Foul!Shnook: That was a strike.(Shnook gets smacked by a Goon's baseball bat)Shnook: [to the Goon] ...I don't like you. [faints]
- Miracle Rally: What Bobo attempts to do for the Sweetwater Shnooks. He actually pulls it off.
- Oh, Crap!: The announcer's reaction to Bobo being put in the game.
- Opposing Sports Team: The Greenville Goons. It isn't enough for them to win the game, they have to cheat and attack and bully the Shnooks as well.
- Pun: After the little elephant wins the game, the Shnooks' manager acknowledges how they have a great player that works for peanuts.
- Put Me In, Coach!: Subverted. The shy and nervous Bobo really doesn't want to go in and play, but the Manager really doesn't have a choice.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Bobo is a very cute baby elephant.
- Sequel Episode: To Mckimson's "Hobo Bobo" (1948), Bobo The Elephant's debut short where he ends up a batboy for the baseball teamnote . Here in this he gets a much more satisfactory ending.
- Sports Stories: Baseball!
- Tranquil Fury: When the Shnooks' original pitcher protests a call, the Goon at the plate smacks him with a bat to shut him up.Shnook: I don't like you. [passes out]
- Unnecessary Roughness: The merciless Goons go to all lengths to win the game, attacking the Shnooks players, and even threatening and attacking the Umpires to get calls to go their way.
- Watch Where You're Going! In dealing with the onslaught of runs Bobo racks up, two Goons get so distracted that they land right into each other ("Which way did he go? Which way did he go?").
