Aviation Vacation is a 1941 Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 cartoon in the Merrie Melodies

Merrie Melodies

Merrie Melodies is the name of a series of animated cartoons distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures between 1931 and 1969.Originally produced by Harman-Ising Pictures, Merrie Melodies were produced by Leon Schlesinger Productions from 1933 to 1944. Schlesinger sold his studio to Warner Bros. in 1944,...

series. It was directed by Tex Avery

Tex Avery

Frederick Bean "Fred/Tex" Avery was an American animator, cartoonist, voice actor and director, famous for producing animated cartoons during The Golden Age of Hollywood animation. He did his most significant work for the Warner Bros...

, story by Bob Monahan, musical direction by Carl Stalling

Carl Stalling

Carl W. Stalling was an American composer and arranger for music in animated films. He is most closely associated with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts produced by Warner Bros., where he averaged one complete score each week, for 22 years.-Biography:Stalling was born to Ernest and...

.

Synopsis

This is one of the cartoons that Warner would occasionally produce that featured none of its stable of characters, just a series of gags, usually based on outrageous stereotypes and plays on words, as a narrator (Robert C. Bruce

Robert C. Bruce

Robert C. Bruce, Jr. was a voice actor, and the son of Robert C. Bruce who was also an actor. He was the narrator for a number of Warner Bros. cartoons in the 1930s and 1940s...

) describes the action. In this case, the story concerns a small airplane taking its passengers on a world tour. Some excerpts:

• The plane, as well as its shadow, are remarkably flexible. The plane takes off like a bird, running and jumping and flapping its wings. The plane's shadow, seen from above, dodges ground-level obstacles.
• The plane passes Mount Rushmore
  Mount Rushmore
  Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore near Keystone, South Dakota, in the United States...
  
  , which is seen to include the two major candidates from the 1940 election, Franklin D. Roosevelt
  Franklin D. Roosevelt
  Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
  
   and Wendell Wilkie.
• In Ireland, an Irish tenor sings "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling
  When Irish Eyes Are Smiling
  "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" is a lighthearted song in tribute to Ireland. Its lyrics were written by Chauncey Olcott and George Graff, Jr., set to music composed by Ernest Ball, for Olcott's production of The Isle O' Dreams, and Olcott sang the song in the show...
  
  ", while a (cartooned) stray hair keeps appearing in the frame, as if stuck in the projector. The Irishman abruptly stops singing and yells at the top of his lungs to the projectionist, "Hey, you, up there! Get that hair out of here!" (This joke was later reused in Avery's cartoon Magical Maestro
  Magical Maestro
  Magical Maestro is a 1952 animated short film directed by Tex Avery and produced by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio. It tells the story of Poochini, a canine opera singer who spurns a magician. The magician is able to replace Poochini's normal conductor prior to the show through disguise...
  
   (1952)).
• In "Darkest Africa", natives are listening to jungle drumbeats which are used for communication. One native asks another what the drums are saying, and the second native (illustrating the age of this kind of joke), responds, "Boop-ditty, boop-ditty, boop-boop-de-boop!"
• Also in Africa, a native is using a blowgun, and is revealed that he was merely aiming at a practice target. His target calls him a "terrible shot".
• A group of ostriches hide their heads in the sand. Another ostrich arrives, perplexed, wondering where everyone went.
• A series of cocoons opens up, all of them producing beautiful butterflies, except for a weak and scrawny one: "Well, I've been sick!"
• The cartoon ends with the plane lost in fog while returning to New York City. When the fog finally clears, the plane is discovered to be attached to a carousel ride, and as it circles, "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down
  The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down
  "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" is a song written in 1937 by Cliff Friend and Dave Franklin. It is best known as the theme tune for the Looney Tunes cartoon series produced by Warner Bros...
  
  " is playing. In this unique instance for a WB cartoon, the Looney Tunes
  Looney Tunes
  Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...
  
  theme segués into the Merrie Melodies theme at iris-out.

Censorship

• When this cartoon aired on Cartoon Network, two entire racial stereotype scenes were cut. One scene has an African native using a blowgun. It is revealed he was merely aiming at a practice target. A second native comments, "Terrible shot, Joe. Terrible shot." The other scene shows African natives pounding their drums and making signals. One native asks another, "What did they say?" The other native says (imitating drum sound), "Boom di di boom di di boom boom boom boom..."