Boyhood Daze
Boyhood Daze is a 1957 Merrie Melodies cartoon featuring young boy Ralph Phillips. Following From A to Z-Z-Z-Z (1954), it is one of two cartoons in which he stars.
Plot
The cartoon starts with a baseball going through a window, breaking it, and Ralph exclaiming: "Ohhh nooo!" His mother sends him up to his bedroom until his father gets home.
Up in his room, he broods over his mistake and tries to imagine himself as a hero, first by imagining himself as a famous explorer in Africa to rescue his parents from a native tribe, then tells his father to go to his room for playing in Africa and tells his mother his insurance will cover the window and to buy a catchers mitt with the rest.
He is then seen making paper airplanes, and wishing he was a "jet ace or something". He then is imagining himself as an Air Force pilot who thwarts a Martian invasion and is a national hero.
His third dream occurs after he hears his dad come home and can hear the distant talking of both of his parents. His imagines himself as a convict in a jail cell. A whispering voice repeats: "They're coming to get'cha, Phillips." He steps down, crushes out a cigarette he was apparently smoking, and faces the door like a man. The cell door opens and a silhouetted person with a booming voice says: "You're gonna have to pay for this, Ralph Phillips!"
Back to reality, it turns out to be his rather gentle-demeaning father who informs Ralph that the window repair was coming out of his allowance, then lets him go outside to play.
As he runs back outside with a baseball bat and glove, he stops when he sees a cherry tree in the yard, then notices a hatchet. Next scene he is walking towards the tree with the hatchet, and he turns into a young George Washington as the cartoon irises out.
See also
External links
- Boyhood Daze at the Internet Movie Database
- "Boyhood Daze". BCDB.com. Retrieved November 4, 2016.
- Ralph Phillips at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on November 4, 2016.