Best Animation Movies of 1949

Washington Irving's tale of Ichabod Crane and the headless horseman is brought to life, narrated by Bing Crosby.

The desert in the U.S. southwest is the natural habitat of the Road Runner, a high-octane, cartoon bird who runs so fast on the desert's roadways that he leaves a trail of flame or causes pavement to ripple, distort, or roll up like a carpet. This speedy bird is unrelentingly chased by a hungry coyote named Wile E., who, though believing himself to be a genius, repeatedly fails to catch the Road Runner with his endless supply of ACME Corporation gadgets, weapons, and other paraphernalia. Episodes of this television series contain three theatrical cartoons, one with the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, one with Tweety Bird and Sylvester Cat, and one with other characters from Warner Brothers' cartoon classics.

Bugs Bunny vs. a famous opera singer at the Hollywood Bowl.

During yet another pursuit of Jerry, Tom ends up being killed when an upright piano slides down the stairs and slams into him. He meets a feline St. Peter at the gate of the Heavenly Express, but is initially turned away due to his constant torture. However, he will be allowed onto the train if he can have Jerry sign a letter of forgiveness within one hour. If not, it's Hell for Tom. Will he go up or down?

Yosemite Sam tries to force Bugs Bunny to do a high-diving act when the regular act cancels.

This was the debut for Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. It was also their only cartoon made in the 1940s. It set the template for the series, in which Wile E. Coyote (here given the ersatz Latin name Carnivorous Vulgaris) tries to catch Roadrunner (Accelleratii Incredibus) through many traps, plans and products, although in this first cartoon not all of the products are yet made by the Acme Corporation.

Porky Pig goes to a marsh on a hunting expedition, accompanied by his dog (who resembles the barnyard dog from the Foghorn Leghorn series), and they bring home a live Daffy Duck. They put Daffy into a freezer to keep him fresh until cooking time, but Daffy keeps jumping out of the freezer to heckle Porky and the dog.

A kitten who is being tormented by a bulldog finds a savior in a black cat (from the "Black Cat Bad Luck Company") who merely has to cross the dog's path for something very unlucky to happen to the bully.

The Bide-a-Wee Mouse Home has sent the orphan mouse, Nibbles, to spend Thanksgiving with Jerry. But Jerry's cupboard is bare, and Nibbles is always hungry. They start by raiding Tom's milk dish, but Tom wakes up and drains it. Fortunately, Mammy has just put out a huge Thanksgiving feast, just ready for the raiding. And that's just what Tom and Nibbles do, grabbing Pilgrim hats from the table decorations. All goes fairly well until Nibbles eats a whole orange, which is way too big for him. Jerry smacks him with a spoon, which sends the orange flying, right into Tom's mouth. Tom stalks up to the table in a feather duster, which turns into an Indian headdress. Battle follows, featuring Tom sending flaming cat-tails after the mice, and culminating in a champagne bottle launching Tom into the dish cabinet, which crashes down. Tom waves a white flag, and all three sit down to a polite dinner, but Nibbles eats the whole turkey before anyone else can touch it.

While unwittingly trespassing in the royal gardens in search of carrots, Bugs runs afoul of the Sheriff of Nottingham, who tries to apprehend him for poaching. The royal grounds are, in fact, amply posted with "No Poaching" signs (one reads "Not even an egg"), but Bugs either didn't see or ignored them. Of course, Bugs sets out to endlessly turn the tables on the hapless sheriff, at one point talking him into building a six-room Tudor home in the middle of the King's gardens. The dueling pair are periodically interrupted by a fat, dopey Little John who proclaims, each time he appears, "Don't you worry never fear, Robin Hood will soon be here". In the end, the merriest of merry men does appear and it's...it's...oh, see it yourself. Bugs goes in disguise as the King, who then knights the Sheriff ("Arise, Sir Loin of Beef...").

When Donald Duck chops a Christmas tree, the inquisitive chipmunks Chip and Dale follow and see him decorate it with nuts and sweets. So they sneak in his home, determined to 'harvest' it all, using the toys for the Duck nephews, as if Christmas came early for them, so to say. Donald puts up an equally 'playful' yet grim defense, so it all rapidly escalates into a bitter miniature two-to-one-giant war over the Christmas-treats.

Porky has an adventure in Wackyland while searching for the last Do-Do bird.

Bugs rescues a penguin from an Inuit hunter at the South Pole and becomes obligated to it beyond his wildest dreams.

A baby woodpecker mistakes Jerry for his mother. The mouse rejects the newly hatched bird but soon finds himself protecting it against his feline nemesis, Tom.

Pepé Le Pew invades a Parisian perfumery, where he sniffs the various scents. The shopkeeper runs in horror and recruits a female cat to run the skunk out of the shop. She tosses the cat inside, and a bottle of dye falls over, accidentally painting a white stripe down the cat's back. Pepé gives chase...

Tom pretends to have a cold in order to trick Mammy into letting him stay inside for the night. Jerry tricks Tom by making him think he really is sick - with the measles.

Porky Pig's quiet life in his high-rise apartment building is rudely disrupted when an obnoxious mutt sneaks in and refuses to leave.

Donald steals Chip and Dale's nuts for his nut-butter shop, which is shaped like a giant walnut, Chip and Dale, roll and "shoot" Donald into a nearby lake.

It's October 7th and Chip is working industriously to store enough acorns in the tree for the winter. Dale would rather sleep in his matchbox, but an angry kick from Chip gets him working furiously. But there's only so much they can do. Their tree is nearly out of acorns. Luckily, the two semi-intelligible chipmunks happen to see the half-unintelligible Donald Duck, a park ranger, planting acorns. They immediately set to steal his bag of the precious nuts. Donald soon realizes what they are up to, and sets out a box propped up with a stick. It's a crude trap, with an acorn as bait; but it's not too crude to fool Dale, who upsets it and traps Chip. Soon, Donald finds he can have fun instigating a fight between these two quarrelsome chipmunks, but he underestimates their friendship and their ability to work as a team against a common enemy: in this case, a bad-tempered duck.

The last of Tex Avery's variations on "Red Hot Riding Hood" (1943), in which the country wolf visits his city cousin, who tries to teach him the rudiments of civilized behavior when watching girls in nightclubs - without, it has to be said, a great deal of success...

Popeye and Olive are at the premiere of Popeye's new movie. He gets a little too wrapped up in the movie, interacting with it at various points, and even handing the screen version of himself a can of spinach. The movie itself is the story of Aladdin, minus the songs and about half the footage of the short it's cut from.

Squirrel Ginger Nutt is annoyed by a crow, a rabbit and a mole as he attempts to go fishing.

The signs indicate current bounty prices: $50 for a fox, $75 for a bear, only 2 cents for a rabbit. Bugs is insulted.

Bugs buys the homes of the three little pigs and the wolf starts blowing them down. Of course you know "this means war."

Elmer Fudd chases Bugs Bunny all the way from the woods to a local movie theater, where cinema-related hijinks ensue.

Mice Hubie and Bertie drive Claude the cat insane through an escalating series of head games.

Tom plays championship tennis against a cigar-smoking bully, but both cats find themselves battling Tom's much-abused lackey, Jerry Mouse, for the trophy.

When a bulldog threatens Tom to keep away from his puppy, Jerry realizes that sticking close to the boy is the best way to keep away his feline tormentor. But Tom is not about to let the mouse evade him so easily.

A rabbit tries all he can to keep a hunting dog awake before tomorrow's big hunt.

Little Henery the Chicken Hawk goes hunting chickens with a hammer and clunks Foghorn Leghorn on the noggin. Foghorn sends Henery after the barnyard dog by misleading him into thinking the dog is a chicken. The dog sets Henery straight and helps him build a tree trap to catch Foggy for supper.

After getting mixed in with a bale of cotton, Bugs ends up on a Mississippi riverboat, where he meets up with the notorious gambler Col. Shuffle.

Tex Avery's narrator shows us the amazing features of the ultra-modern House of Tomorrow.

Inspired by a magazine ad, Goofy sends for a mail order body building course. First is weight lifting; after Goofy finally gets the weights up, a fly lands and sends him crashing through several floors in the apartment building. Chinups: the bar itself goes up and down. Then a rubber-band stretch device, which Goofy quickly tangles up in, sending him crashing through the building and several other pieces of equipment.

Tom drowns in a lake and sinks to the bottom. There, he finds a mermouse, which he tries to capture and eat.

Porky has a series of altercations with a mischievous mouse and a vicious serial killer.

Bugs goes to the dog track, falls in love with the mechanical rabbit there, and has to outsmart the dogs to get to her.

After a man down on his luck comes looking for a rabbit's foot, Bugs Bunny embarks on a campaign of terror that eventually provokes him to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.

Droopy inherits a fortune, but the will says that if he meets an untimely death all the money will go to Spike, who spends the entire film trying to make this happen.

Bugs must joust with Sir Pantsalot of Drop Seat Manor when he tosses a partially eaten carrot into a suit of armor.

Droopy is part of a pack of English hunting hounds trying unsuccessfully to catch a tricky, tea-drinking fox.

At the Hodge Podge Lodge, a crotchety, near-sighted Mister Magoo takes a banjo-playing bear to be his nephew, Waldo.

Daffy Duck falls from the sky onto Elmer Fudd's farm. Rather than be shot, he begs Elmer to accept him as a personal slave. After torturing Elmer with his type of kindness, slave Daffy puts a whip in Elmer's hands, then instantly dresses like Abraham Lincoln to scold Elmer for "whipping slaves".

The patriarch of a family of farming hill billies is fattening a turkey to slaughter for Thanksgiving Day dinner, and he is fattening the fowl by providing him with a veritable feast of roast beef, ham, fruits, vegetables, cakes, and pies. A jealous Daffy Duck, one of the turkey's fellow farm animals, wants to have all the food for himself. So, Daffy pretends to care for the turkey's welfare and warns the turkey off the food, and he urges the turkey to lose weight so that the hill billies won't want to slaughter him. Daffy gorges himself on the food while acting as coach to the turkey, who is frantically and strenuously trying to reduce himself. When Thanksgiving comes, the turkey is toothpick-thin, and the hillbilly father turns his hungry sights on an overweight Daffy!

It's March 13, Donald's birthday. The boys are going to buy him a box of cigars, but they're broke. They do a quick bout of yardwork and hit Donald up for the price of the cigars (without telling him why), but he makes them put it in a piggy bank. The problem: how to get the money without Donald catching them. Donald catches them buying the cigars but thinks they are buying them for themselves and forces them to smoke until they are sick the whole box.

The wolf, the champion toreador, and Droopy, the challenger, are competing to see who is best in the bullring in the hopes of winning the hand of actress Lina Romay (who appears in a live action shot).

Chided by a narrator, John Rooster thinks Elmer Fudd is going to slaughter him with an axe for Sunday dinner and is willing to do anything to prevent his hour of doom.

Abandoned in the country by his old master, Charlie Dog tries to force himself upon farmer Porky Pig, playing upon his sympathies with a histrionic rendition of the horrors of big-city life.

Baseball fan and would be-star Donald Duck enjoys listening to a World Series game on the radio and 'playing' the part of his favorite star Casey in his own yard. Unfortunately a melomanic apis melifera (Latin for honeybee) is as avid to listen on the same radio to a mellifluous symphony and play the director theatrically, waving a match as baton, instead of fertilizing his garden flowers. Donald first just turns the switch, then hides it, but the bee dials inside, so he tries to chase it, but is scared by the sting. The battle for channel choice gets worse, and vindictive.

Minnie Mouse knits a sweater for Pluto. When she puts it on him, Pluto does whatever he can to try to get it off, eventually shrinking it to the perfect size for Figaro.