Hobby Horse-Laffs

Hobby Horse-Laffs is a 1942 Looney Tunes short directed by Norman McCabe.
== Title ==
The title is a portmanteau of "hobby horse", a children's toy that is a stick that has a toy horse head attached to the top, and an alternate spelling of "horselaugh," a coarse and loud laugh. The title also references Hobby Lobby, the radio program the short is a parody of.
== Plot ==
A spoof of a popular radio program of the time called Hobby Lobby with blackout gags showcasing people's various hobbies and/or inventions.
Outrageous hobbies featured include:
*Boatman Orville Scutter: He is wild and crazy about boats.
*Botanist Herman Dipple: He has a box of plant food. His plant food makes his plants grow very, very tall.
*Cactus Garden: Its gardener is walking through the cacti in pain.
*Herbert Strongfort: He eats only raw carrots and grows himself some rabbit ears.
*Chuckney Gigglezwick: A magician who tries to make a goldfish disappear, but he ends up in the fishbowl instead.
*Professor Blooper: Imitator of musical instruments.
*Samson McDivot: A tough dog trainer who manages to talk his dog Lochinvar into going back into his doghouse. But somehow he got bit, for his pants were ripped and his underwear is showing.
*Pilot Students: The pilots are instructed on how to fly. At the end of their scene, they literally fly like birds.
*Collector: He has the largest collection of hotel towels and dishes in the world, but he went to jail for it.
*Julius Digby: He eats a donut that absorbs coffee without any drippage with the flick of a switch. When he takes a bite, the coffee gushes out.
*Anti-Hotfoot Shoe: Someone puts a match under a shoe and lights it up. Then the shoe douses the flame with a flower watering can.
*Old Man Hutsut: He's an explosives experimenter. One day, when the mailman arrives, he somehow blows up himself.
*Potts: The last hobby features a man named Potts and a fellow passenger reading a newspaper with the fellow passenger dominating the paper. Potts is fed up with it, so when he introduces himself as a gadget maker, he uses one he's wearing right now to poke the passenger in the eyes, allowing him to get the paper back.
== Caricatures ==
* Charles Laughton - William Bligh
* Artie Auerbach - "It's a possibility"
* Richard Haydn - Giggleswick
* Walter Brennan - Mailman
* John Qualen - Potts
== Availability ==
GentlemanJimBluRay.jpg|(2023) Blu-ray Gentleman Jim (restored)
=== Streaming ===
lt hbo max.jpg|HBO Max (2020 - 2023) (restored)
lt max.jpg|Max (2023 - 2024) (restored)
== Censorship ==
* When this cartoon aired on Nickelodeon, the entire sequence featuring a mailman trying to deliver a letter to Old Man Hutsut (the explosives experimenter), only to write "Forwarding Address Unknown" after hearing an explosion was cut.06/06/42 Hobby Horse-Laffs LT NICK CENSORED
== Notes ==
* This is the first Norman McCabe short to feature only one-off characters rather than recurring characters such as Porky Pig and Daffy Duck as in his previous shorts.
** Despite this, Porky Pig makes an appearance on the lobby card, but not in the cartoon itself.
* This cartoon entered the public domain in 1971, as Warner Bros. did not renew the copyright in time.
* The print used on Max has an unusual rendition of the opening music, using a sped-up version of the 1939–1940 opening music instead of the 1941–1945 arrangement used in the Looney Tunes shorts at the time. However, as this is currently the only known print of the short with surviving opening and closing titles, it is not clear if the unusual opening music is a mistake made by the service or not.
== Gallery ==
HobbyHorseLaffsCredits.png
Hobby-horse-laffs-600-300x236.jpg|Lobby card
Hobby Horse-Laffs (1942) - Boats.jpg
== References ==
Category:Looney Tunes Shorts
Category:Black-and-white cartoons
Category:1942
Category:Shorts
Category:Post-1935 Black & White Looney Tunes
Category:Cartoons directed by Norman McCabe
Category:Cartoons with music by Carl W. Stalling
Category:Cartoons with orchestrations by Milt Franklyn
Category:Cartoons with film editing by Treg Brown
Category:Cartoons with sound effects edited by Treg Brown
Category:Cartoons with characters voiced by Mel Blanc
Category:Cartoons with characters voiced by Kent Rogers
Category:Cartoons with characters voiced by Robert C. Bruce
Category:Cartoons produced by Leon Schlesinger
Category:Cartoons in the Sunset Productions package
Category:One-Shot Cartoons
Category:Public domain films
Category:Spot Gag Cartoons