Koko's Earth Control is a 1928 Max Fleischer cartoon, starring Koko The Clown and Fitz the Dog.
The short begins with Max at his drawing board, inking in Koko and Fitz running across an animated earth, until they find the "Control of Earth" station. Inside, the duo begin carelessly toying around with its controls, with Koko trying to stop Fitz from pulling the lever that will end the earth. Naturally, he fails, resulting in the sun melting the moon with a breath, and the sun getting blown up by a comet. This results in recurring flashes of lightning, and Koko and Fitz getting seperated and winding up in their own escapades, until these devastating effects of their mishaps extends into the real world!
This short is in the Public Domain and can be viewed here.
Tropes:
- Apocalypse How: The cartoon world undergoes a Class X, as the cartoon Earth and most of its celestial bodies are destroyed. The real world is shown to be undergoing a disaster of its own as well, with floods, earthquakes and collapsing buildings.
- Apocalypse Wow: The cartoon apocalypse is a drawn-out and dramatic thing, with flashes of lighting, fighting celestial bodies, demons coming out of the earth, chasms opening in the ground, erupting volcanoes, and the world's colors flickering on and off until reality collapses entirely.
- A God Am I: The characters play with the control of the Earth.
- Baby Planet: The cartoon world is small enough for the characters to see it curving.
- Big Electric Switch: The world-ending lever in the "Control of Earth" station doesn't fully look like this trope, but it's just as important.
- Casting a Shadow: Fitz hides under Koko's shadow as if it were a carpet.
- Declarative Finger: Used by Koko to chastise Fitz, and even inflates it to spank him!
- Deranged Animation: Particularly the scene where a volcano morphs into the face of a man smoking a cigar!
- Downer Ending: The short ends with buildings collapsing, cities disappearing underwater, the earth still shaking, and Koko and Fitz melting into a puddle of ink.
- Dramatic Thunder: The most recurring sign of the apocalypse are dramatic flashes of lightning.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Not the ending, but the toon Earth the characters start out on blows up, throwing Koko back into the real world. This dosen't stop the effects from going into the real world to wreak havoc as well!
- The End of the World as We Know It: Fritz pulling the end-of-the-world lever causes the cartoon world to be destroyed. When they're thrown into the real world, it's shown to be collapsing as well.
- The Face of the Sun: An anthropomorphic sun melts the The Man in the Moon by blowing on it before being hit by a comet and swallowing it.
- Funny Animal: Fitz the dog, a cartoony, anthropomorphic animal character.
- Genius Loci: The volcano morphs into the face of a man smoking a cigar.
- Hammerspace: How Fitz gets an ax out of thin air to chop apart a tree he is fighting.
- Have You Seen My God?: There is a control room for the Earth with a lever to destroy it, but nobody watches over it.
- Hell on Earth: One of the symptoms of the apocalypse, with demonheads living slightly under the ground level and volcanos turning into faces.
- Losing Your Head: When Koko's sticks his head underground, it remains trapped in the earth when he first comes up. When he first tries to pull it up, he grabs a demon's head instead, but finds his normal head soon after.
- The Man in the Moon: When the apocalypse begins, an anthropomorphic moon rises in the day and is promptly melted by The Face of the Sun.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Fitz causes the destruction of their cartoon world and of the real world.
- Oh, Crap!: Koko has a moment of absolute terror when he reads what the lever that Fitz is trying to pull does.
- Our Demons Are Different: There is a horned demon head coming out of the ground, and, when Koko looses his head, he grabs into the hole and accidentally takes the demon head, which seems to be just a head.
- Roger Rabbit Effect: During the ending, Koko and Fritz are present as thumb-sized animated figures in a live-action world.
- Schmuck Bait: Whoever gave a big lever a warning sign like that was just begging to have it pulled.
- Screen Shake: In the life action apocalypse scenes, the screen is visibly shaking to display the earthquakes rocking the world.
- Too Dumb to Live: When the two enter the world control station, Fitz sees a lever that will destroy the Earth if pulled. He promptly decides to do everything in his power to pull it. He succeeds and, sure enough, the world and everything in it ends.
- Weather-Control Machine: One of the functions of the eponymous Earth Control is Weather Manipulation.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Max Fleischer appears at the beginning to startle animation, but disappears after the intro and is nowhere to be seen when Koko and Fitz are having their escapades.
- When Trees Attack: During the cartoon apocalypse, Fitz is attacked by an old, animated tree that starts trying to pummel him.
