"The Hole Idea" is a 1955 Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Robert McKimson. Featuring none of the stable characters of the Looney Tunes brand, it is instead a single-shot cartoon of human players (and one devilish one).
The cartoon begins with a narrated depiction of the Stone Age.
Diminutive chemist Calvin Q. Calculus has created a material that enables life forms and things to pass through. While he is thrilled with his new creation, his other half is complaining about being neglected (among other things). The Portable Hole, as the invention comes to be called, becomes an instant hit, as the newsreels depict its varied uses — honorable and mundane (including recovering a crying baby from a locked safe).
But someone in the audience has very sinister plans for the new product. The Holey Terror, as he comes to be known, steals the bag of holes the prof is sleeping with. Between a simple jewelry store burglary, a city bank robbery, the crashing of a burlesque show, and a truck stop through Fort Knox, he puts it to very evil use. His luck runs out, however, when his last getaway attempt goes right into the State Prison.
Calvin uses the remaining material in his pump to make one final hole, which Gertrude very helpfully falls into. The fall must have been pretty deep, because the next thing he knows, a brief but very intense fire erupts through the opening. It turns out to be the Devil, promptly returning her topside and complaining bitterly about how hellish it already is without having her around.
Noteworthy for the fact that McKimson animated the entire cartoon single-handedly during the brief shutdown of Warner Bros.' animation department. He considers it one of his favorite cartoons.
An uncredited Bea Benaderet is the voice of Calvin’s domineering other half Gertrude.
"The Hole Idea" provides examples of:
- Artistic License – Paleontology: This being Looney Tunes, scenes of cavemen and dinosaurs in the same shot are bound to happen.
- Bowdlerization: The version shown on ABC's The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show cut the part during the newsreel showing that the portable hole is perfect for parents who accidentally locked their babies in safes (possibly out of fear of copycat incidents).
- Deliberately Monochrome: The in-story newsreel is in black and white, as the page image demonstrates.
- Even Evil Has Standards: In the final shot of the cartoon, the Devil emerges from the hole Gertrude fell through and puts her right back.Devil: [to Calvin] Isn't it bad enough down there without her?
- Extra! Extra! Read All About It!: "Inventive Genius Makes Great Discovery." Also becomes a Special News Event at the theater behind the newsboy.
- Gone Horribly Right: Downplayed. The Holey Terror has one final hole which he thinks he’s using to evade capture. Once he jumps through it, it gets whipped away by a cop, and The Holey Terror ends up in the state pen.
- Henpecked Husband: Calvin is certainly depicted this way, what with that harpy of a woman he’s with.
- Locked in a Freezer: One of the uses for the portable hole showing in the newsreel is getting a baby out from inside a safe.
- No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Evidently the entire world collection of portable holes was in Calvin's suitcase.
- Painted Tunnel, Real Train: The large hole the thief uses to make his getaway through a large formation not unlike what Wile E. Coyote would face… has a train in there! (Without any tracks, even!)
- Phantom Thief: Shown leaving the audience, he uses the new invention to start a crime wave.
- Portable Holes: The premise of the cartoon.
- Pun-Based Title: Of "the whole idea."
- Tempting Fate: In the newsreel, Calvin states that "I invented the portable hole for the good of humanity, but let us all hope it will never be used for evil purposes." At this point, a sinister figure leaves the theater...
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Calvin's wife.
