Little Rural Riding Hood is a 1949 animated short film (six minutes) directed by Tex Avery, one of the Tex Avery MGM Cartoons.
It is a follow-up to his 1943 cartoon short "Red Hot Riding Hood" (and reuses some bits from "Swing Shift Cinderella"). That one featured Red Riding Hood as a nightclub singer in the big city; this one makes Red Riding Hood a hillbilly living in the country. At the start of the cartoon "Country Red" is delivering a jug of moonshine to her grandmother. She is intercepted by "Country Wolf", but he doesn't want to eat her, he just wants to kiss her. And as the image shows, she’s just fine with that!
After a chase they are about to kiss when Country Wolf gets a telegram from his city cousin—the same wolf from "Red Hot Riding Hood". City Wolf invites his cousin Country Wolf to come to the city and see his Red. More comedy ensues when Country Wolf comes to the city and falls in lust with City Red.
Tropes:
- Anticipatory Lipstick: Played with in that the wolf is seemingly the Abhorrent Admirer in the beginning of the short, and attempts to kiss the rural Red Riding Hood, but she apparently reciprocates, as shown when she immediately puts on lipstick as soon as he catches her. Unfortunately, the Wolf gets a letter from his cousin with a picture of City Red, who he becomes more interested in. Rural Red waits for her kiss, only for the wolf to replace himself with a cow.
- City Mouse: The suave, fancy City Wolf, who eventually is embarrassed by his bumpkin cousin.
- Country Cousin: City Wolf invites his hillbilly cousin to the city.
- Country Mouse: Country Wolf, who gets carried away in the big city.
- Door Judo: Country Red does this to the wolf, who runs through the open door, outside, and...Country Wolf: (to the audience) A-hyuck... kissed a cow.
- Grass is Greener: Not as a song per se, but the hick wolf is happy to chase hick Red until he sees what he's missing in the city. And City Wolf, who seems coolly indifferent to City Red, flips for Rural Red!
- Handy Feet: Country Red has really big feet and prehensile toes, and spends most of her on-screen time using them to do things like open and close the front door on multiple occasions, and even to point down the road to Grandma's house. It's to the point she barely uses her hands for much!
- Here We Go Again!: The ending: in response to the Country Wolf flipping for the city version of Red, City Wolf has no choice but to take him home to the country. Once there, however, City Wolf immediately flips for Country Red, leaving Country Wolf no choice but to take him home to the city.
- Hypocritical Humor: In "Little Rural Riding Hood", when the country wolf is unable to control himself at the sight of Red and tries to rush the stage to join her, his cousin, the city wolf, has no choice but to return him home to the country — only to become equally crazily attracted to the country version of Red, thus prompting the country wolf to take him home to the city!
- In One Ear, Out The Other: As Country Wolf whistles at Red with both hands, Wolfie pushes his hands into his mouth and out both ears.
- Mirror Character: Through most of "Little Rural Riding Hood", Country Wolf's urbane cousin laments Country Wolf's lack of self-control around Red. He drives Country Wolf back to the country, sees the country girl that was Wolfie's crush before Red...and loses it exactly like Country Wolf did over Red. Then Country Wolf laments his cousin's lack of self-control and sends him back to the city.
- Red Riding Hood Replica: This short takes a The City vs. the Country approach to the Red Riding Hood story, with a "Country Red" whose quest to give her grandma some moonshine is intercepted by a romantic tryst with Country Wolf. Country Wolf soon departs to the city when his cousin invites him to see the sexy nightclub dancer Red from Red Hot Riding Hood.
- Rough Overalls: The rural Country Wolf is in overalls; this also carries over to the city scenes where, instead of wearing a neat cummerbund like the City Wolf, he's wearing overalls with his dinner jacket and pants.
- Scooby-Dooby Doors: An interesting variation: the chase sequence happens in a seemingly normal room (with only two or three doors), but then additional doors would be quickly created as needed— the trick was to open a door violently, and a new opening was instantaneously created where it had hit the wall; this worked completely regardless of the door's hinges, so that when there was no room left on walls, doors were created on the floor and ceiling as well, accompanied by the song "In and Out the Window".
- Simpleton Voice: Country Wolf, as voiced by legendary gag man and voice actor Pinto Colvig, using the exact same voice he used for Goofy and he even gives a A-hyuck after noticing he accidentally kissed a cow.
- Stock Footage: City Red's dance is reused shot-for-shot from Swing Shift Cinderella.
- Suspender Snag:
- The poster depicts City Wolf's hand holding Country Wolf by his suspenders to keep him from getting close to City Red.
- Subverted in the short itself. When Country Wolf tries to run towards City Red, City Wolf grabs him by his suspenders, but instead of simply holding onto them to restrain him, he places a mallet in them and lets go, letting it whack Country Wolf in the back of the head when they snap back. Country Wolf does the same thing to City Wolf when he starts running towards Country Red.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: At the start, Country Red is delivering a jug of moonshine to her grandma, but we never see any sign of her.
