Felix Dopes It Out is a 1925 animated short produced by Pat Sullivan and distributed by M.J. Winkler. In this short, Felix helps a man on the brink of suicide find a cure for his red nose by traveling to the island of Boola-Boola.
Plot[]
Felix is pacing in a suburban neighborhood when he spots two men sitting down together, one which has a red nose (represented by his nose being entirely black). The other man uses his nose to light his cigarette. Felix finds this amusing. The man decides to take a nap. When he tips his head back, the hat on his head falls off. Two flies arrive and one skates on the man’s head until the other fly says “You’d better keep off there!” The fly touches the man’s nose and flies away with steam coming out of his shoes. Felix also laughs at this. The man wakes up, walks up to a woman, and asks her if she would be interested in marrying him. She refuses the offer, giving him a mirror to show him that it is because he has a red nose. The woman gives the man a powder puff. He tries to use it on his nose, but it quickly burns up. The man gets frustrated, but the woman laughs and walks away. Now distressed, he pulls out a gun and is about to commit suicide when Felix runs up and tells him to stop. He asks “what’s the matter?” The man points to his nose and says that it is “a jinx!” Felix pulls out a leaflet reading “The only known cure for RED NOSES is in the possession of H.R.H. the King of BOOLA-BOOLA, an island of the South Seas.” Felix tells the man to “leave it to me” and leaves.
He grabs some clothes, puts them in a washbasin, and pushes it towards the ocean. A question mark appears above his head, which he turns into a mast. He uses the pajamas as a sail and sets off to sea. Suddenly, his boat stops moving. A shark starts swimming around his boat, then jumps out of the water. Felix wishes something would happen. A swordfish pokes a hole at the bottom of his boat, causing it to spring a leak. Felix pulls out his tail and sticks it in the hole. A box of garlic floats over to the boat. Felix takes a strand of it and eats it, then when the shark jumps out of the water he blows in its face to knock it out. Felix then blows on the mast of his boat and finally makes it to Boola-Boola.
On the island, one monkey tosses a coconut to another monkey who hits it with its bat. Felix stands at the edge of a cliff and paces about. The monkeys bat a coconut toward the cat, which hits him and sends him flying through the air. He lands at the entrance of a royal mess kitchen. The chef used to serve turtle soup, oysters, and fish, but when he spots Felix he changes “fish” to “cat.” Felix asks the waiter where the king is. The waiter says he’ll take the cat right to him. He then tries to grab the cat and ends up chasing him on the island. Felix ends up walking on a rock that turns out to be a lion, which roars at him and produces circles. Felix grabs them and tosses them first around the lion, then the chef. The cat finally makes his way to His Majesty’s palace. He sneaks past the sleeping king and into the Boola-Boola Royal Treasury. When he opens the safe, he accidentally releases a snake. Felix takes the horn from behind the king’s chair and sticks it in his mouth, producing a tune that makes the snake dance, enabling the cat to go back and get a sheet of paper containing the cure. With the solution in hand, Felix swims all the way back home to give the man the cure: “Keep on drinking and it’ll turn blue.” The man is not pleased with this solution and chases the cat into the horizon.
Notes[]
- This is the final short distributed by M.J. Winkler. The next short, Felix Trifles with Time, would be distributed by Educational Pictures.
