Meatless Tuesday

Meatless Tuesday is 1943 Andy Panda cartoon directed by James Culhane, and was released on October 25, 1943. It was produced by Walter Lantz Productions and distributed by Universal Pictures.

The title refers to Meatless Monday, which was a prominent campaign during World War II that encouraged people to ration meat and other goods during the war.

Plot
Taking place entirely in pantomime, Andy Panda is going through a cookbook looking for something to prepare on a Meatless Tuesday when he hears a rooster crow outside, giving him the idea to make roast chicken for supper. But learns that the farmyard rooster is far from cooperative, as he pursues him to a chicken coop, to which he locks himself in. He tries a few methods to get the rooster out, such as using bird seeds as bait and prying the coop door open, but none of them appear to work. Andy then uses a shovel to dig his way into the coop, but the rooster and the other hens re-positioned the coop above a fountain, causing Andy to be spit out of the earth and into his cellar.

Andy emerges from the cellar with an axe and begins chasing the rooster once more. He eventually catches up with him and prepares to sever his head from his neck, but he hesitates. The rooster responds by putting a blindfold onto Andy, who then proceeds to hack off his head. But the axe blade, however, flies off the handle and lands into the neck of the rooster. With the upper hand, the rooster pursues Andy up a telephone pole, which he then chops down, causing it to crash into Andy's garden. The rooster lets out one more victorious crow, only to be pelted with a tomato by Andy in return.

Analysis

 * Meatless Tuesday is the first Andy Panda short directed by James Culhane, who replaced Alex Lovy after being drafted in the US Navy. Culhane himself was uninterested of Andy as a character, describing him as "too goddamn sweet and cuddly" in his autobiography, Talking Animals and Other People, and preferred to direct the cartoon in a more break-neck pace compared to Lovy's more slower methodical directorial style.
 * This is also the second and last cartoon to star Andy Panda with the unnamed rooster, who previously appeared in 1942's Andy Panda's Victory Garden. Although unnamed in this short, the rooster would appear in the Andy Panda comic book series, and would be named Charlie Chicken.

Home media

 * Walter Lantz Presents: The World of Andy Panda (VHS; Universal/MCA)
 * Woody Woodpecker and Friends: Volume 6 (DVD; Columbia House)