''Gypped in Egypt'' is a 1930

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...

short film directed by John Foster and Mannie Davis. The film was also produced by

The Van Beuren Corporation The Van Beuren Corporation was a New York City-based animation studio that produced theatrical cartoons as well as live-action short-subjects from the 1920s to 1936. History In 1920, the Keith-Albee organization formed Fables Pictures for the ...

and released by

Pathé Pathé or Pathé Frères (, styled as PATHÉ!) is the name of various French people, French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest ...

, a film distributor with a newsreel titled

Pathé News Pathé News was a producer of newsreels and documentaries from 1910 to 1970 in the United Kingdom. Its founder, Charles Pathé, was a pioneer of moving pictures in the silent era. The Pathé News archive is known today as British Pathé. Its coll ...

. The plot explores the journeying of two

anthropomorphic Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics t ...

dogs in the country

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

. The title's pun means that they were robbed or gypped in Egypt. Copyrighted as ''Gyped in Egypt'' and released on November 9, 1930, the film is part of an early cartoon series titled '' Aesop's Sound Fables''. However, the film is not based on an

Aesop Aesop ( or ; , ; c. 620–564 BCE) was a Greek fabulist and storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as ''Aesop's Fables''. Although his existence remains unclear and no writings by him survive, numerous tales cre ...

fable.

Plot

The film begins with Waffles and Don sleeping on a

hammock A hammock (from Spanish , borrowed from Taíno and Arawak ) is a sling made of fabric, rope, or netting, suspended between two or more points, used for swing (seat), swinging, sleeping, or Human relaxation, resting. It normally consists of one ...

which is strung by a

camel A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. C ...

. Waffles and Don sleep on the hammock until the camel kicks them out. Don looks around and finds a source of

water Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...

. Once arriving at that source, a fight breaks out between the three of them due to the camel trying to drink the water. The fight kills the camel, who is punched several times in the face by Waffles. However, a

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

drinks the water instead when they are not looking. A

sphinx A sphinx ( , grc, σφίγξ , Boeotian: , plural sphinxes or sphinges) is a mythical creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the wings of a falcon. In Greek tradition, the sphinx has the head of a woman, the haunches of ...

then arrives from the distance and accuses them of killing the camel. Waffles denies this, and instead blames Don. Waffles then

hallucinates A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the qualities of a real perception. Hallucinations are vivid, substantial, and are perceived to be located in external objective space. Hallucination is a combinatio ...

and they both end up in a

pyramid A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilat ...

. After they both inspect the room, Don finds a coin-slot in one of the tombs and inserts a

coin A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order t ...

. This opens the tomb and reveals a

skeleton A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside ...

. The skeleton then gets out of the tomb and starts to dance. This makes the

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

on the walls start to dance. After the dance, the skeleton then retreats to the tomb. However, the skeleton leaves his leg outside. And when he retrieves to get it, Don hits him over the head with it. When Don tries to see what the tomb is like, Waffles, in a state of panic, pushes him in to the tomb. However, Waffles is dragged into the tomb, and a fight breaks out between the three of them. As a result of the fight, Waffles and Don are both thrown from the tomb and into another part of the pyramid. After inspection, the little dog, despite being told not to by Waffles, pulls some hairs from a

mummy A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay fu ...

, which makes a sound similar to a

fire alarm A fire alarm system warns people when smoke, fire, carbon monoxide or other fire-related or general notification emergency, emergencies are detected. These alarms may be activated automatically from smoke detectors and heat detectors or may also ...

. This makes a skeleton and two cats gather round a

wheelbarrow A wheelbarrow is a small hand-propelled vehicle, usually with just one wheel, designed to be pushed and guided by a single person using two handles at the rear, or by a sail to push the ancient wheelbarrow by wind. The term "wheelbarrow" is mad ...

and turns it into a makeshift

firetruck A fire engine (also known in some places as a fire truck or fire lorry) is a road vehicle (usually a truck) that functions as a firefighting apparatus. The primary purposes of a fire engine include transporting firefighters and water to an i ...

. Both Waffles and Don follow the wheelbarrow, until the skeleton flings them off it and they fall into another room. After inspection, Don leans on an unknown item, which produce a

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

-like sound. Thus, Don begins to play a song on it. A skeleton then expands it into an upright piano and begins to play a

duet A duet is a musical composition for two performers in which the performers have equal importance to the piece, often a composition involving two singers or two pianists. It differs from a harmony, as the performers take turns performing a solo ...

with the little dog. After the duet, both dogs leave through an opening in the wall. They then comically take an elevator to a top of an Egyptian style elevator shaft. After reaching the top, they comically walk off the ledge and falls back down to the bottom. They then start running through the landscape. However, they turn back after seeing a giant sphinx face in the sky. The film ends with both Waffles and Don running from the giant face.

Characters

Unlike other ''Sound Fables'' of this time, the main characters are not Milton and Rita Mouse. Instead they are a pair of two dogs, Waffles and Don. Other characters include Egyptian mummies, sphinxes, and a plethora of skeletons, who are inside the tombs and the pyramids.

Reception

''Gypped in Egypt'' received mixed reviews from the cinema magazines at that time.Motion Picture News, November 15, 1930

The Film Daily ''The Film Daily'' was a daily publication that existed from 1918 to 1970 in the United States. It was the first daily newspaper published solely for the film industry. It covered the latest trade news, film reviews, financial updates, informatio ...

said that the film was "A nightmare of goofy antics cleverly worked out for the laughs". The

Motion Picture News The ''Motion Picture News'' was an American film industry trade paper published from 1913 to 1930. History The publication was created through the 1913 merger of the ''Moving Picture News'' founded in 1908 and ''The Exhibitors' Times'', founded ...

said that the film was fair.

References

External links

* * {{IMDb title, id=tt0146845, title=Gypped in Egypt 1930 films 1930s American animated films 1930s animated short films 1930 animated films 1930 short films Films set in Egypt Animated films about dogs Films about camels Van Beuren Studios