Vaudeville

This entry has a new twist on the standard opening. This time, the hand draws the outline of the entire scene showing Max at the drawing board,and transforms into the live-action of him drawing Ko-Ko. As the clown comes to life, his outline separates from his inked in sections, and Max taskes a pen knife to cut the sillouette out. Max then rolls down the corner of the page to reveal a theater box office and places Ko-Ko behind the ticket window. A series of gags follow related to the customers, including a fat woman, who Ko-Ko determines is worth three seats after having measured her fanny. The cartoon progresses to a series of gag segments representing each act such as an imitation of Will Rogers, Gallagher and Sheen, as well as other old vaudeville staples such as Jazz bands, pianists, and animal acts. Finally, Ko-Ko tries to fake a magic act by producing a bowl of goldfish, then pretends to make it disappear by swallowing the contents while hiding his face behind his magic cloak. But his inflated cheeks spurting water and fish reveals his fakery. To this, Max challenges Ko-Ko to a match of real magic, as he does a disappearing/transformation, changing into an Indian, a woman, a Black man,an English lord, and a Jewish merchant. Ko-ko accepts the challenge, and wrings out the ink from his costume, transforming back into a blob of crawling ink. In turn, Max swallows a bottle of ink, transforms into a blob of ink, which flows into a bubbling inkwell. Interesting use of film cutting to create Max's transformations.