How I Love Her Father's Money

A Clarification... I'LL STEAL IT! NO One Volition E'er KNOW!

A 1942 Merrie Melodies short subject directed by Chuck Jones, "The Dover Boys at Pimento University" or "The Rivals of Roquefort Hall" (just "The Dover Boys" for brusk) is an blithe parody of a series of early 20th Century juvenile fiction novels called The Rover Boys.

This was Chuck's first endeavour at making a cartoon that would afterward exist cogitating of his (and by extension, the studio'due south) trademark style – unlike the cloying cuteness and Disney-like nature of his Sniffles the Mouse cartoons. It was also an early experiment with stylized Limited Animation, as well as smearing. It nigh got Chuck fired for its unorthodox nature – he just barely managed to avoid the pinkish skid from his boss.

The short has fallen into the public domain and tin can be viewed here. Columbia Cartoons even made their ain knockoff of it, in 1943's "The Rocky Route To Ruin."

The Dover Boys were likewise used in an Animaniacs Slappy Squirrel Short (acting as musical narrators to Daniel Boone), in Wakko's Wish, and fabricated a cameo as crowd members in Space Jam. A remake, featuring ninety-plus animators reanimating each individual shot in their ain fashion, was released in 2018.

Unmarked spoilers abound. If yous have a problem with that, merely watch the cartoon kickoff. It's only ix minutes long.

Confound those tropes! Oh, how I detest them!

Action Girl: Dora Standpipe manhandles, throws and beats Dan Backslide multiple times when he tries making advances towards her, enough and then that he's barely able to stand up when aid arrives, though she nonetheless wants the Dover Boys to rescue her.
The Alcoholic:
Dan: THEY Bulldoze ME TO DRINK! (Cue rapid shot-taking)
Booze Hic: Dan, presently later on downing fifteen shots in iv seconds.
All for Nothing: Dora is the sole reason Dan and the Dover Boys are in disharmonize. In the aftermath, when all 4 of them are knocked unconscious, Dora leaves the scene being courted past somebody else.
Amazing Technicolor Population: Dan Backslide is green, despite anybody else having normal skin colors.
Bad Guys Play Puddle: Dan Regress is introduced playing puddle in "a tavern of unsavory repute".
Berserk Push button: It seems the mere presence of the Dover Boys is enough to ready Dan Regress off, every bit he launches into an angry tirade afterward he senses them pass by the bar he'south in.
Large Bad: Subverted with Dan Backslide, who is supposed to be the picture'south antagonist but is too comically inept to exist a existent threat.
Big Man on Campus: The Dover Boys are the most pop students at P.U.
Big, Sparse, Short Trio: Tom is alpine and able-bodied-looking (and he'southward the one who gives Dan Backslide the worst beating when the boys finally catch upward to him), Dick is slim and weedy, and Larry is rotund and shorter than the other two.
Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Tom, Dick, and Larry respectively.
Brick Joke: The sometime man in an Erstwhile-Timey Bathing Suit who keeps popping upwards out of nowhere in the short to the melody of "While Strolling Through the Park I Twenty-four hours" goes off with Dora in the stop.
Creepy High-Pitched Voice: Dan Backslide speaks — or rather, shouts — with a very shrill voice.
Cross Counter: A three-way 1, delivered by each of the Dover Boys simultaneously to the other two Dover Boys. They were all aiming for Regress, who did not mean to dodge them.
Dryad Fight-and-Flight Response: Spoofed, as it'due south the distressed damsel who seriously beats up the villain while calling for help. This is distressed?
Damsel out of Distress: Played with in that, fifty-fifty though Dora effortlessly hurls Dan Regress across the room when he tries to advance on her, she continues calling for Tom, Dick, and Larry to salvage her. And and then she absconds with the Running Gag guy after the Dover Boys knock each other out, subverting their Big Damn Heroes moment.
Darkhorse Victory: At the end of the curt, the old man in the Quondam-Timey Bathing Conform manages to hook up with Dora, despite previously appearing as nothing more merely a strange Running Gag.
Dastardly Whiplash: Dan Backslide, coward-bully-cad-and-thief.
Declarative Finger: Used frequently by Dan Backslide, and when Tom confronts him.
Deconstructive Parody: For its time, this was the nature of the parody of the Rover Boys books.
Delayed Reaction: Dan Regress doesn't realize he's taken both Dora and the tree she'south clutching until he's loaded her into the runabout and driven a couple dozen feet.
Deliberate Values Noise: Dan Backslide'southward first scene establishes him as the villainous turn-of-the-century Dastardly Whiplash past having him smoke like a chimney and downward a dozen shots in less than a minute, showing how absurd his vices are fifty-fifty past the standards of the '40s.
Devilish Hair Horns: Dan Backslide, coward-peachy-cad-and-thief, has his hair styled into two wicked horns, just in case you couldn't tell he's the bad guy.
The Dividual: The Dover Boys motion in unison, speak in unison, human activity exactly the aforementioned, and all three of them are fiancees to the same adult female.
Does Not Know His Own Forcefulness: Dora Standpipe beats up the bad guy, Dan Backslide, on her own, yet she doesn't seem to realize information technology and keeps calling the Dover Boys for assistance.
Don't Explain the Joke:
Narrator: Pimento University. Pimento U. Good ol' P. U.
{barbershop quartet singing} Pimento U, oh, sweet P.U.
Thy fragrant odor scents the air
A pox on Yale; poo-poo, Purdue
Pimento U, my college fair
Either/Or Championship: "The Dover Boys at Pimento University" or "The Rivals of Roquefort Hall". ^annotation The proper name of the short is a parody of the title of the first book, "The Rover Boys at School" or "The Cadets at Putnam Hall".
Embarrassing Initials: Pimento Academy. Pimento U. Good ol' P.U.
Epic Fail: The Dover Boys knock themselves out trying to vanquish up an already limp and unconscious man who can't even stand up upwardly. In fact, they knock themselves out precisely because he can't stand up!
Evil Is Hammy: Salvage for his very first line, Dan Backslide is always screaming and it's hilarious.
Expy:
- The Dover Boys (Tom, Dick, and Larry) are, of course, expies of Edward Stratemeyer'due south "Rover Boys" Dick, Tom, and Sam (and their schoolfellows Larry, Fred, and Frank). ^note Their names are also a pun on the phrase "every Tom, Dick, and Harry".
- Dan Backslide is this to the villain of the books, Dan Baxter.
- Dora Standpipe is based on Dora Stanhope from the books.
Eyes Always Close: Dora's eyes remain airtight for almost of the brusque, which gives her an oddly serene await even while she screams for the boys to salvage her (or while she's kicking Dan Backslide's ass).
Foreshadowing: At the tavern, Dan places a moving-picture show of Dora in forepart of a poster showing a muscled man; the picture show, of Dora's face up, covers the human's head. When Dan kidnaps Dora as she'southward grasping a tree while counting for Hibernate-and-Seek, she rips the tree out of the ground without losing a crush or realizing she'due south being taken. As nosotros later find, she's stiff enough to necktie Dan in a knot.
The Gay '90s: The setting of this short. ^notation The original book was published in 1899.

Gold Digger: Dan Backslide, who really loves Dora Standpipe... 'due south begetter'southward money.
Adept Smoking, Evil Smoking: Dan Backslide uses a cigarette holder — of course he must exist a coward-bully-cad-and-thief.
Great Big Volume of Everything: The Handbook of Useful Information which informs Dan Backslide "How Best to Remove Young Lady from Tree (Fig. 1)".
Light-green and Mean: Dan Backslide has a greenish complexion.
Ham-to-Ham Combat: Subverted. Past the fourth dimension the Dover Boys confront Dan Backslide, he's already been browbeaten senseless by Dora to the bespeak that he doesn't even say anything.
Have a Gay Erstwhile Time:
- "A gay outing at the park has been planned by the merry trio."
- "I HATE TOM! I HATE DICK! AND I HATE LARRY!"
- Where else in modernistic times will you hear the term "runabout" outside of Star Expedition: Deep Space Nine? (The runabout was an early on car torso style, popular around the plow of the 20th century. By 1942, they were long obsolete and presumably associated with the 1890s nostalgia that the short is parodying.)
Idiot Plot:invoked An entirely intentional instance: the whole cartoon'south plot is built around every character involved being an idiot, from Dan abducting Dora despite the fact that she's strong plenty to rip a tree out of the ground, to Dora allowing herself to be kidnapped despite said forcefulness, to the Dover Boys declining to notice Dan screaming about kidnapping Dora while two anxiety abroad from them and and so simply standing around and non bothering to assist Dora or even motility until they become a telegram.
I Accept You lot Now, My Pretty: As Dora pounds on the door and cries for assistance, Dan starts slinking upward behind her with a creepy look on his confront, no dubiousness with impure intentions. He keeps doing this even after she starts casually hurling him across the room, looking less menacing every time.
I Demand a Freaking Drink: The Dover Boys bulldoze Dan Backslide to beverage. To bulldoze the indicate home, he then goes over to the bar and downs a baker's-dozen worth of shots in the span of about four seconds (with the barkeep knocking one back in the process).
Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Dan Regress gets casually beaten up past Dora while she'due south screaming for help, to the point that he starts calling for help. Then the Boys beat him upwardly again without stopping to meet whether he'due south actually doing anything threatening.
Informed Attribute: The narration describes Tom, Dick, and Larry as at to the lowest degree somewhat dissimilar from each other (Tom is the party animal, Dick is the serious one, and Larry is the youngest), just in the bodily cartoon, they have basically no observable differences aside from Tom tending to speak for the group. They speak more than lines in unison than they do apart. Listen, this is intentional; much of the Dover Boys's jokes are dedicated to them beingness blandly heroic archetypes with goose egg going on upstairs.
Insistent Terminology: Dan Backslide (coward-bully-cad-and-thief).
Ironic Echo:
- Dora Standpipe on being captured past Dan Backslide.
  Dora: Aid, Tom! Help, Dick! Help, Larry!
- Dan Backslide later being kicked, knocked, and tossed senseless past Dora Standpipe several times.
  Dan Backslide: Assistance, TOM! HELP, DICK! HELP, LARRY!
Lantern Jaw of Justice: Tom has a massive chin.
Big Ham: Dan Regress. Which is to be expected, given Mel Blanc is voicing him.
Last-Second Discussion Bandy: "And Larry, the youngest of the three jer— ah, um, brothers."
Leitmotif: Every time the sometime human being in the swimsuit appears and walks across the screen, a instrumental version of "Fountain in the Park" (better known equally "While Strolling through the Park I Day") plays.
Lemony Narrator: The narrator'south prose is whimsically theatrical, he has a trend to get caught off guard by some of the events in the story, and almost lets slip his ain opinions (such as almost calling the boys jerks almost the beginning).
Express Blitheness: Or at least extreme stylization.
- As mentioned in the introduction, this short was one of the first to use the "smear" technique now nearly ubiquitous throughout Western animation (including many of Chuck's own after works).
Lovable Jock: Tom. ◊
Love Makes You Dumb: EVERYBODY.
- Dan kidnaps and attempts to have advantage of a woman who tin rip an oak tree clean out of the footing. Though to be fair, he himself grabbed said lady while she was property the tree, carrying both her and the tree at the same time, so he's very strong himself.
- Dora pounds on the door screaming for assist instead of unlocking it or, you know, breaking i of the windows, all while obliviously kick Dan's green donkey black-and-blueish.
- And the Dover Boys? The first thing they do when they reach the lodge is plow through the door that Dora was right behind, potentially killing her depending on their levels of force. No wonder she ditches them all for the swimsuit hobo.
Manchild: The entire cast. Dora and the Dover Boys' idea of a fun time consists of an intense game of hibernate-and-seek in the park.
May–December Romance: In the terminate, Dora leaves with the old man in the swimsuit.
Meaningful Name: Dan Backslide (coward-bully-cad-and-thief)
Motility Blur: This short pioneered the use of the smear, in which the characters appear elongated for two or three frames as they zip from one pose to the next. John Kricfalusi has an analysis on this and the poses, and explains how the drawing influenced his mode.
MRS Caste. Dora is picked up from Mrs. Cheddar'due south Female Academy.
Mugging the Monster: If Dan Backslide had realized just how strong Dora was, he might have picked a unlike girl.
Mundane Made Awesome: Dan Backslide announces his plan to steal a runabout with all the enthusiasm of someone nigh to steal the Statue of Liberty.
Muscles Are Meaningless: Dora's artillery are about as thick every bit the frame of Tom's bicycle and yet she hurls Dan Backslide across the room like he's fabricated of matchsticks.
No Indoor Vox: Dan Backslide never speaks beneath a shrill scream.
Noodle Incident: "Dick, a serious lad of 18 summers plus a winter in Florida, every bit related in The Dover Boys in the Everglades..."
Offhand Backhand: Dora to Dan, as she continues to phone call for help.
Offscreen Crash: The kickoff two times Dora throws Dan offscreen, the camera stays on Dora (yet pounding the door) long enough for Dan's crashing to stop, and then pans over the aftermath.
Pet the Dog: If you pay attention while Dan Backslide is throwing back drink afterward drink in rapid succession, you'll notice that the bartender occasionally has a potable; Whenever he does this, Backslide smiles and gestures at the glass. This seems to indicate that he bought the Bartender those drinks.
Public Domain Animation
Pity the Kidnapper: By the time the boys got to the shack, Dan Regress is browbeaten black and blue past Dora, and is calling for the Dover boys to assistance him.
Polyamory: Hang on… so Dora is the fiancée of all three of the Dover Boys?
Imperial Prose: The narration parodies what some come across as the frothy, cliche-ridden (apparently even for the fourth dimension) prose of the Edwardian boys' novel.
Rule of Three: "Unhand her, Dan Regress!!" The repetition is lampshaded with "Hey, we're getting in a rut!"
- The short too comedically contrasts the fundamentally-interchangeable personalities of the Dover Boys themselves against the remaining cast'south (Dora and Dan Regress's) trend to unnecessarily repeat a control or comment merely to refer to each of them individually.
- And Dan gets thrown across the room three times (on-screen) by Dora.
Running Gag: The old human with the bathing suit and sailor chapeau, who periodically appears at random, makes everything come up to a screeching halt, and hops in the air earlier walking offscreen to the melody of "Fountain in the Park." He gets Dora in the end.
Silk Hiding Steel: Dora is a prim and proper lady who volition effortlessly school your donkey without breaking a sweat or a fingernail.
Sinister Schnoz: Dan Regress has one. It's the biggest olfactory organ in the short, and the 2017 downtime adds a new gag into the short by having Backslide play pool with it.
Standard Female Grab Area: How Dan gets Dora (one time she'due south removed from the tree) to go with him to the runabout.
Standard Snippet: As would be expected from Carl Stalling.
Of a sudden Shouting: Dan Backslide (coward-slap-up-cad-and-thief) subsequently his outset 2 lines.
- "Telegram for the Dover Boys! Messrs Tom, Dick, and Larry, care of Wayward Tavern, Upper Bottleneck, New York. Sirs, Quote: HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLP! unquote. Signed, Dora. Thirty-five cents collect."
Talking Is a Free Action:
- Dora and the Dover Boys pass the outside of the tavern of unsavory repute, wherein Dan Backslide notices them and rants. Once he's finished, the Dover Boys and their mutual fiancée are exactly where nosotros left them, manifestly having paused outside for a full minute.
- An even more ridiculous occurrence happens when Regress kidnaps Dora in his stolen runabout. When Dora calls out to each Dover Boy for help, he doesn't but stop the car during; he pulls it dorsum one-half a cake.
Besides Dumb to Live:
- Dora. Even as she repeatedly Offhand Backhands her captor, she continues to blindside on the door calling for help. A door that's visibly locked from the side she'southward on and is much thinner than the tree she uprooted earlier. She needs help, all correct.
- Dan's potent plenty to not only behave Dora, just the tree she was belongings onto. Information technology wasn't until he was driving off that he noticed Dora was withal holding onto the tree. Dora'due south not the only one that needs help.
- Let'south face it, everyone with the possible exception of the swimsuit hobo is a few crayons short of a whole box. And given how he's wandering around in random places with just a swimsuit on...
2-Faced Aside: "...Dora Standpipe! Love, Rich DORA STANDPIPE! HOW I LOVE HER... (Aside Glance) father'due south money."
Unhand Them, Villain!: Said (eventually) to a villain who is laying battered and semi-witting on the flooring.
United nations-Installment: The Narrator implies that other stories featuring the Dover Boys exist, such as The Dover Boys in the Everglades.
Un-Paused: As Dan Backslide curses out the Dover Boys, he is interrupted past the swimsuit guy passing by, getting only up to "Con—". After the human being leaves, Dan finishes with "—plant them!"
Useless Protagonist: The Dover Boys. They inadvertently reveal that Dora has been left unprotected to Dan Backslide, freeze immediately when she gets kidnapped, have to be spurred into action by a telegram, and by the time they practise come to her rescue, the vile villain has already been beaten to inside half an inch of his life past her. Then they terminate up knocking themselves out.
With Catlike Tread: Dan Backslide's idea of stealth:
- He sees the Dover Boys hiding under his pool tabular array and he shouts his dastardly plans at the peak of his lungs. The boys, some two-and-a-half feet abroad, don't seem to notice.
  "The Dover Boys! And so DORA MUST Exist ALONE AND United nations-PRO-TECTED!"
- And just outside, he follows up with "A runabout! ^* This line is appropriately whispered. I'LL STEAL It! NO 1 WILL E'er KNOW! " ^* This line, on the other hand, Backslide screams in the middle of a metropolis. (yet no one seems to hear or endeavor to finish him.)