Guess what happens next.
The Dizzy Acrobat is a 1943 animated short film directed by Alex Lovy and produced by Walter Lantz.
Woody Woodpecker is wandering through a circus. He manages to escape death from the knife-throwing act and a tiger, and he gets revenge when a lion eats his hot dog. The second half of the cartoon has Woody attempting to enter the big top to see the main show, only for a great big ogre of a security guard to stop him. The rest of the cartoon has Woody continually getting the better of the guard.
Tropes:
- Auto Cannibalism: By deceit. After a lion eats Woody's hot dog, Woody gets an empty bun and sticks the end of the lion's tail in it. The lion chomps down and winds up literally swallowing his own tail.Lion: Just call me Stubby!
- Bait-and-Switch: A clown is balancing an elephant. The guard goes barreling through, sending them both flying. The clown looks up, cringes with fear, dives off to the side—and catches the elephant.
- Circus Episode: Woody has fun at the circus.
- Disproportionate Retribution: A lion eats Woody's hot dog when Woody is looking away. Without a second thought, Woody gets back at him by putting the lion's tail into the hot dog buns, and tricks the lion to thinking that it's another hot dog—prompting the lion to bite his own tail off.
- The Fool: Woody strolls through the circus, blissfully escaping death multiple times without even noticing. He walks right through a man hammering a bell in a "Test Your Strength" game, he walks right in front of the target in a knife-throwing act just as the knives hit, and he walks right over a tiger in a cage, cheerfully eating his ice cream the whole time.
- Knife-Throwing Act: With the standard Lovely Assistant standing in front of a giant target. Woody steps right in front of her as the knives all thud into the target in an outline around her body.
- Oddball in the Series: One of the few Woody Woodpecker cartoons where Woody doesn't win. He and the guard both wind up stuck in the shooting range game, dodging rifle pellets.
- Wartime Cartoon: The "Rubber Man" is "gone for the duration" due to rubber conservation. And there's a little racist humor when the guard, as he's going through his punishments, occasionally looks like the buck-toothed Japanese caricature popular at that time.
