A Message to Gracias

Speedy Gonzales, on the verge of becoming the top Warner Bros. cartoon star (as they retired most of the characters), starred in Robert McKimson's "A Message to Gracias". This one has Speedy getting hired to deliver a letter to a revolutionary general - who looks like a mouse version of Ernest Borgnine - after Sylvester eats the other messengers. You can probably guess what sorts of things Speedy does to Sylvester.

This isn't exactly related, but I would like to talk about why Warner Bros. closed its animation department in 1963. The Looney Tunes were products of vaudeville-style entertainment. This type of humor was becoming old-school by the Kennedy era, and members of the baby boom were starting to come of age. So, WB closed its animation department. I don't really know why Friz Freleng established a new studio and sold cartoons to WB. Granted, I like Looney Tunes cartoons as much as the next person, but anyone can see that they were starting to lose steam by this point. This cartoon is OK in a pinch.