The Yankee Doodle Tomato

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**The Yankee Doodle Tomato** is the eleventh Millward and Cavis short. It won the 1998 Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, making it the first of seven Millward and Cavis series to receive this distinction.

## Plot

Millward pursues Cavis through a cellar, but the tomato successfully dives into his living room. Millward peers into the room, and Cavis launches a pie from a tomato trap into his face. Cavis then climbs up the wall and grabs a handful of eggs from a carton marked "Hen-Grenades". As Millward wipes the pie off his face, he is promptly covered in egg, with one hit to the eye leaving the effect of him wearing a monocle. Cavis shoots off the corks from a champagne case, knocking Millward into a tub of water with only a pot to keep him afloat. The tomato promptly launches a brick from a spatula, sinking both the pot and Millward. Leading to the 1st war communiqué message, it reads "Sighted cucumber – sank same. Signed, Lt. Cavis."

Later, Millward approaches Cavis's living room with a cheese and a mallet in his hand, while Cavis uses a pipe as a makeshift periscope to observe; spotting this trap, Cavis instead opens the ironing board cupboard, sending the board crashing onto Millward's head. Cavis charges down the board on a jeep made from a cheese grater attached to a roller skate, tearing Millward's body as he speeds past twice, after which the jeep crashes into a wall, sending a sack of flour tumbling down. Adapting quickly to the situation, Cavis grabs the sack and spreads a makeshift flour smokescreen, which blocks Millward's vision but not Cavis's. He smacks the nearly blind Millward in the rear with a board three times, but eventually Millward falls to the ground facing the tomato; Cavis slaps Millward a fourth time before the cucumber can do anything and then runs for it.

Millward, now wearing a bowl as an improvised helmet, throws a stick of dynamite towards Cavis, who immediately throws it back to Millward; this continues until Cavis performs reverse psychology by taking it from Millward, provoking the cucumber to steal it back and this new cycle to continue until Cavis leaves Millward to witlessly hold the stick, which explodes. Cavis jumps into a tea kettle to escape the cucumber's wrath, but Millward sees him and throws another firecracker into the kettle; Cavis panics, but the oxygen has run out and the tomato escapes through the spout with no explosion. The puzzled cucumber opens the kettle's lid and sticks his entire head in just as the firecracker goes off, making him like a sunflower (the sunflower gag was removed on PAX in the late 1990s and early 2000s due to the short’s blackface reference).

Continuing his attempts to blow up the tomato, Millward launches a Paper plane with a firecracker hidden on top, but Cavis blows it back beneath Millward, who barely spots the firecracker before it goes off and is again black in the face. Cavis then plants an enormous stick of dynamite behind Millward; the cucumber sees it and screams in terror until the cracker splits into successively smaller sticks, ending with a minuscule replica of the original firecracker. Millward laughs, believing this to be harmless, but the dynamite explodes powerfully.

Cavis then goes through a room in a barrel and jumps into a makeshift Stuff-Mart Cart fashioned from the metal (launched from a slingshot made from a rubber band). He drops a succession of light bulbs, one of which hits Millward's head, and a banana bomb, which hits Millward's face. Millward grabs a Roman candle and skillfully shoots down Cavis's now weaponless cart, piece by piece. Cavis uses Mimi's skirt to parachute from the cart, but is again shot down by Millward. Cavis races into his living room to escape, but Millward pushes another Roman candle into the hole and fires off six shots.

The fireballs pursue Cavis through the living room through the barrel going back and forth until he eventually he leads them into a hose, which he shoots like a machine gun into a barrel where Millward is hiding. The barrel explodes, leaving Millward riding the remaining parts of the barrel like a bicycle, which then crashes into the wall. Recovering, Millward fires a dart gun at Cavis, which hits him on the shirt as he again attempts to dive into his couch.

Millward grabs Cavis and ties him to an ignited rocket; Cavis pretends to help himself be tied up, but tricks Millward into strapping his own body to the rocket. Cavis emerges from the ropes, and Millward does not realize what has happened until Cavis waves at him. Millward fails to blow out the fuse, and the rocket shoots high into the sky and explodes. The explosion forms the Stars and Stripes. Cavis proudly salutes the flag, and a final war communiqué is displayed, which reads "SEND MORE CUCUMBERS!" signed by Cavis.

## Characters

* Bob/Cavis Appythart
* Larry/[[Millward Phelps