The Bird Came C.O.D. (Looney Tunes)
| The Bird Came C.O.D. (episode 354) | ||||||||||||
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 Chuck is still in his weak stage, but he’ll get better after this.
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The Bird Came C.O.D. is a 1942 Warner Bros. cartoon produced by Leon Schlesinger and directed by Chuck Jones, a goofy cat named Conrad delivers a palm tree to a stage and finds a magician's hat which has a bird inside it that keeps tormenting him.
Bad Qualities
- The story is just confusing and poorly-executed; it jumps from Conrad delivering a palm tree to finding an angry bird, who previously appeared in "Stage Fright", another subpar Two Curious Puppies cartoon which Jones previously directed in 1940, inside a magician's hat that keeps beating him up.
- Very weak and unfunny jokes written by Rich Hogan, who is uncredited on this short, such as Arctic Palm Tree Co.
- Poor pacing such as Conrad falling off the stage and crashing into the musicians' instruments through a long screen pan.
- Annoying running gag with this bird hitting Conrad Cat over and over again.
- Chuck Jones reuses the joke with the bird hitting on Conrad from "Stage Fright", which also wasn’t that good of a cartoon.
- Conrad Cat is without a doubt one of the most forgettable Looney Tunes characters ever made and only appeared in two more cartoons after this.
- Conrad's laugh is very obnoxious to listen to. It doesn't help that Mel Blanc provided the voice for Conrad Cat.
- Much like the salesman from "Jungle Jitters", Conrad is basically a Goofy rip-off, but without the charm that Goofy had.
- Conrad's laugh is very obnoxious to listen to. It doesn't help that Mel Blanc provided the voice for Conrad Cat.
- This cartoon almost caused Chuck Jones to get fired from the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio by producer Leon Schlesinger who was not satisfied with the quality of the cartoons he made over the past three years between 1938-1941.
Good Qualities
- This is one of the last Disney-esque cartoons Chuck Jones worked on before experimenting with much more comedic cartoons later on such as "The Dover Boys". On top of that, Chuck Jones would eventually learn from his mistakes and would later direct much better and funnier Looney Tunes cartoons in years to follow.
- Some funny moments such as Conrad falling off a stepladder and crashing off-screen.
- Good animation for its time.
- As with the rest of the Looney Tunes shorts of the time, Carl Stalling's music is nice to listen to and fits the action onscreen very nicely.
Reception
This short was considered among both animation historians and Looney Tunes fans as one of the worst Warner Bros. cartoons made by Chuck Jones of all time due to its sluggish pacing and its unfunny yet confusing humor.
This is one of the two cartoons that almost got Chuck Jones fired from Warner Bros., due to its very poor quality, the other cartoon was "The Dover Boys", which ironically is considered one of his best shorts; Leon Schlesinger was displeased with its experimental animation. Co-incidentally, both cartoons were produced and released in 1942, just as director Chuck Jones started improving on his animation direction.
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