Wags to Riches

**Wags to Riches** is a 1949 *Droopy* cartoon directed by Tex Avery.

## Plot

The Newspaper reads “Millionaire Leaves Fortune to Pet” and then the camera scrolls to “Which will be the Lucky dog?” if it’s either Spike or Droopy. The scene cuts to the mansion where a man does the speech on who will be a lucky dog, Spike crosses out Droopy and puts him outside of the house. Spike can’t wait to hear his name but when hear the name Droopy his jaw dropped and fells back, however the man reports that in the event of Droopy’s death the state reverted to Spike, so Spike became happy again and takes the paper noticing about “Droopy’s death” so he looked outside of Droopy changing to the grave reading “Here Lies Droopy”, So Spike turns himself into a Skunk chuckling. Spike went outside and tolled Droopy that he will be the lucky dog and so Spike took him inside the house as if to say “Welcome Home!”. Droopy walks into the house and says “You know what? I’m happy, Hooray.” and he holds the purple flag as his success and he continues walking then Spike puts Droopy on the chair and puts the cigar on his mouth and turns on the gas pipes and gave Droopy a lighter for him to smoke and he ran outside waiting for the explosion, however he look from the door key and saw Droopy trying to turn on the lighter which is not working, so Spike went inside the house and took the cigar and a lighter and ignites but the he discovered that Droopy left the chair and the house explodes and so he lit the cigar to smoke and the cigar blew up on his face and so does the lighter.

1. Next, Droopy and Spike played “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” game. So Spike covers Droopy’s eyes with a blindfold and then spike opens the “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” game like a window and drops Droopy off the house, However Droopy comes back to the place where he starts and pinches Spike with the pin sending him screaming falling off the house.

2. Spike arrives to the house with the camera, He dresses up with the blue tie, green hat, red nose, and a mustache to look cool. He knocks the door, Droopy opens the door to Spike the Camera-Man and Spike took Droopy to the stand and turns Droopy’s head the other side. Spike open the camera box and takes out a bomb from the luggage and puts the bomb inside the camera and closes it. He turns Droopy’s head to the front for a picture, but the camera turns to the rear caused by him pulling the shatter squish Spike is prepared, but since he accidentally turn the camera to Spike himself the bomb explodes on his face and he walks away with an invisible head from the back.

3. While Droopy is sleeping outside with a book, Spike chops down the tree in hopes that it will land on Droopy. He runs to the left, screams "Timber!" and the tree falls on him instead.

4. Spike builds a high diving board with the sign saying “Dive at your own risk”, paints the tennis court in torquoise color for water, benches, umbrellas and a duck floater to make a fake swimming pool. Droopy climbs up the high diving board and he jumps down while Spike watch as he dives down. However, Droopy makes a splash with water as he dives into the pool and Spike panicked as he saw Droopy just dived into the water so Spike decided to do the same thing as Droopy did, but when Spike try to dive into the pool he hits a pool he just painted (which is actually a tennis ground) and shatters into pieces.

5. Spike sets up a gun in the bathroom with the rope tied into the door and closes the door. Droopy walks into the bathroom opening and shutting the door but nothing happened and then he leaves the bathroom but nothing happened. Spike realizes that Droopy hasn’t been shot, but when Spike opened the bathroom door to check what happened the gun shoots at him and he covers his face with the paper and he walks away.

6. Spike has a pistol gun and crawls tip toeing to try and shoot Droopy reading the newspaper, Droopy looks at the gun but the gun didn’t work and spike have to immediately cover the gun with his finger. Spike looks at the gun and then look at the finger covered with gunpowder and the finger shoots at his face leaving his face black.

7. Finally, While Droopy is sleeping on the chair with the book on his lap, Spike puts shaving foam on Droopy’s face and posts the sign reading “Mad Dog” followed by an arrow pointing down at him behind Droopy’s chair. Spike uses the telephone and calls the City Dog Catcher, And when the Dog Catcher truck arrives a Dog catcher came to the house and says “Where’s that mad dog? Where is he?”, and Spike points at Droopy. Droopy wakes up and sits up seeing the Dog catcher, but the fan blows the shaving foam to Spike and the Dog catchers catches Spike instead, now the Dog catchers trap Spike inside the Dog Catcher Truck, closes it, and drives away. Droopy stands outside in front of the house and says “You know what? They think he’s a mad dog.” and they show Spike being trapped inside the Dog Catcher Truck, following Droopy saying “...and he is too!”.

## Notes

* This is the first film where Spike appears as Droopy’s rival.
* This is the first film to use the Timber falling gag, where Spike chops down a tree to have it fall on his target and shouts “Timber” before it falls back to him.
* This film has been awarded for Academy Award Shortlist.
* Droopy speaks only two lines in this short.

## Availability

* (1993) LaserDisc - *The Compleat Tex Avery*, Side 5
* (2007) DVD - *Tex Avery's Droopy: The Complete Theatrical Collection*, Disc 1 (Warner Bros.)
* (2012) Blu-ray - *Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2*, Disc 3 (standard-definition; Warner Bros.)
* (2017) Streaming - Boomerang
* (2020) Blu-ray - *Tex Avery Screwball Classics: Volume 1* (restored; Warner Bros Archive)