The Eager Beaver

The Eager Beaver is a 1946 Merrie Melodies short directed by Chuck Jones.
== Plot ==
Beavers are described as the busiest creatures in the woods, responsible for the creation of several dams. In order to protect their homes, the narrator tells them that they should build a dam, which they first confuse as literally saying (muted) swears. A group of beavers begin working on a big dam, with an obnoxious foreman who can't make up his mind on how to position the logs.
All the beavers are hard at work when Eager Beaver arrives on the scene, and while he's ready for action, he just can't seem to find a tree that nobody else has beaten him to. There's either somebody else in the way or he's in the way of somebody else. After nearly chopping the titular character by accident, a tall, burly fellow points to a huge tree at the top of a mountain and yells "Why dontcha chop THAT tree down?!" Eager immediately sets to work. He soon finds that it's not as easy a job as it looks; the tree breaks his axe and explosives do nothing but blow up some of the rock the tree is growing in. 
Meanwhile, a bird tells the other beavers to hurry up with the dam because a flood is approaching. They hurry it up, but when there's one log left, the foreman's obsession with precision wastes valuable time. Unaware of any trouble, Eager finally chops the tree down using a termite, and finds himself and the tree falling down into the canyon below. The flood sweeps the beaver and the tree downstream, the tree ultimately filling the gap in the crew's dam. The beavers cheer and give Eager a hero's welcome, and the foreman is crushed by his own falling log.
== Availability ==
lt eager 8mm aap.jpg|8mm (Associated Artists Productions print)
lt golden 3.jpg|(1992) LaserDisc The Golden Age of Looney Tunes Volume 3, Side 3
346061 front.jpg|(2023) Blu-ray Looney Tunes Collector's Choice: Volume 2 (restored)
== Notes ==
* The third baby hawk that falls out of the nest and hatches has the same high-pitched voice as Porky Pig, complete with stutter.
* The dog that appears briefly in one scene to retrieve his bone out of the tree resembles Charlie Dog.
* During the scene where the beavers "dam" the river, what came out of their mouths were the words "BLANKETY BLANK BLANK" to play on the homophone "damn", a curse word considered taboo for films by the 1934 Hays Code. A similar censorship tactic on uttered profanity were previously used in "Tortoise Beats Hare".
* The Turner "dubbed version" shown on TV contains split-cuts, although they are mostly unnoticeable, unlike the Turner "dubbed versions" of "An Itch in Time" and "Fair and Worm-er".
* This short was copyrighted on 30 December 1945.Catalogue of Copyright Entries
* MeTV aired a previously unreleased restored print of the cartoon on "Toon In with Me".
* According to the production number, this cartoon was produced in the Looney Tunes series but released in the Merrie Melodies series. The lobby cards still use the Looney Tunes moniker, indicating that the series change was done last-minute.
== Gallery ==
Eager-beaver-movie-poster-1946-1020143733.jpg|Lobby card
230996 10150193726423926 8216898 n.jpg|Lobby card
== References ==
es:The Eager Beaver
Category:Merrie Melodies Shorts
Category:Cartoons directed by Chuck Jones
Category:1946
Category:Blue Ribbon reissues
Category:Shorts
Category:Cartoons written by Tedd Pierce
Category:Cartoons animated by Basil Davidovich
Category:Cartoons with layouts by Robert Gribbroek
Category:Cartoons with backgrounds by Robert Gribbroek
Category:Cartoons with music by Carl W. Stalling
Category:Cartoons with film editing by Treg Brown
Category:Cartoons with sound effects edited by Treg Brown
Category:Cartoons with orchestrations by Milt Franklyn
Category:Cartoons with characters voiced by Mel Blanc
Category:Cartoons produced by Eddie Selzer
Category:Cartoons in a.a.p. package
Category:One-Shot Cartoons