Bobby Bumps and the Stork
About Bobby Bumps and the Stork
Pa has threatened to tin-can Bobby's pup on sight, so Bobby and Fido stage a funeral to throw him off. The titles admit the funeral is fake. Bobby then has to produce a stork. He presses an old hen into the job and argues over whether she can fly: it is only three stories down, and she ought to manage one flight. The bird is launched, squawks, and misses. Pa, worn down, decides that after all the trouble this stork has taken, the pup can stay.
Cast & crew
More about Bobby Bumps and the Stork
Earl Hurd's title card dates the copyright to 1916 and prints the cel-process patent dates held with Bray Studios: 11 August 1914 and 15 December 1914. The Bray Animation Project lists the release as 7 September 1916.
Themes
Making
The card on the film itself is the patent notice: Bray Studios Inc. and Earl Hurd, 11 August 1914 and 15 December 1914. Hurd did not have to redraw the hallway and the window for every frame.
Technique
The film opens, as the Bobby Bumps shorts do, with a hand drawing Bobby, Fido, and the room. The figures then move on cels over that drawing.
Preservation
The short survives. A public-domain copy runs 5 minutes 52 seconds, and Wikisource transcribes every title.
Notes
- The opening title calls the funeral a trick: Pa must not see the pup.
- Bobby's answer to "Where ya gonna get yer stork?" is "Watch me!
- The flight test is a three-story drop. A title asks whether they fall the other two.
- Pa's last line lets the dog stay because the stork went to so much trouble.
- A surviving copy runs just under six minutes. Wikisource times the end title at 5:52.
- Like the other 1916 Bray entries, it went out through Paramount's Bray Pictographs.
Scenes
- Bobby and Fido hold a funeral so Pa will think the pup is gone.
- An old hen is shoved off as the stork and the titles count the stories she still has to fall.
- Pa gives in and lets the dog stay.
Quotes
Bobby's Pa has threatened to tin-can the Pup on sight, so this fake funeral has been arranged to throw him off the scent.
Well, I reckon after all the trouble this stork has gone to, you can stick around.
