The Early Bird Dood It!

The cartoon opens with the printed words:

To the ladies
The worm in this photoplay
is fictitious - Any similarity
between this worm and your
husband is purely intentional.

The camera pans over a forest, shown with no background music. There is a sign that reads "Quiet, isn't it?" Then, the camera zooms to a hole in ground, from which emerges a worm wearing a bowler hat. The worm sees a bird in the distance and goes back down into his hole. The bird tries to get the worm out of the hole, but ends up with hanky attached to his beak. The bird writes a zero, the third on this week, in his "worm ration card". The bird says that he will see us tomorrow, and goes away.

The worm comes out from his hole and tells the viewers that the bird is trying to catch him every day, and that it's making him a nervous wreck. The worm wants to get rid of the bird, and then he sees a chance: a cat that chased a mouse but failed.

The worm approaches the cat, and asks him if he wants to eat. The cat says that he does; and the worm shows him a plan of action: the bird chases the worm to his hole, the worm hides in it, then the cat will catch the bird and eat it. The worm tells the cat that he'll see him in the morning. The worm pulls down a rolling screen in order to bring in the next morning. The plan goes well until the cat fails to eat the bird. The cat then chases the bird around the tree, and after some time, the bird hops out of the hollow and hits the still-running cat with the club. The cat says "Ouch!" and then goes swearing (that dialogue is muted). The worm, not having seen all of this, thinks that cat has eaten the bird, and then walks away. Then, he sees the bird and runs away,

The worm tries to jump into his hole; but the bird substitutes his mouth for the hole, and the worm jumps runs away, with the bird in pursuit. They pass a billboard advertising this very cartoon. They stop, and the bird says, "Hey, I hear that's a pretty funny cartoon"; to which the worm replies, "Well, I hope it's funnier than this one"; after which the chase resumes.

The worm changes his form into beautiful woman's leg while hiding in bush. Then, the worm hits the distracted bird with the club. The bird almost hits the worm with club as the worm is walking behind a bush, but stops at the last moment, because the worm is actually standing on the cat's head. The cat chases the bird until they see a bar. They go into the bar, and the cat puts up a sign reading "2 minute intermission for a short beer" Then, the bird flips the sign to "Here we go again!", and the chase continues.

They see a "SLOW" sign, and the chase continues with in slow-motion. They then pass a sign reading "RESUME SPEED", and the chase goes returns normal speed. The bird ducks behind a tree; but the cat goes continues, and crashes through a series of warning signs, reading "DEAD END", "CURVE AHEAD", "STOP", "DETOUR", "BRIDGE OUT", and "ROAD CLOSED". The cat falls off a cliff, into a body of water; at the bottom he finds a road sign reading "HOW DID YOU GET WAY DOWN HERE".

Then, worm, sitting in the hole, puts up a stick with his hat to check if here is bird. The bird itself sits on the stick; and another chase ensues. At one moment worm stops the chase and asks the bird: "Are you following me?" to which the bird loudly replies "YEAH!" and chase continues. The worm replies "That's what I thought", and dashes off.

The bird places a rock on the worm's hole, and paints a fake hole on the ground; but the worm dives into the fake hole. The worm pops his head out, says to the bird "I fooled ya!", then goes in again. The bird attempts to dive into the painted hole, but crashes into the ground. The worm jumps out of the fake hole and dives into a lake. The bird "lifts" the water as though it were a rug, and sees the cat. The bird runs away, pursued by the cat.

The worm, standing in the road on which the bird and cat are running, holds up a sign reading "DETOUR". Then cat and bird then veer to the right, and run right off a cliff. take the other route of chase and fall from steep. The worm, seeing this, produces a bugle, and plays the funeral march, then goes into a jazz riff.

The worm goes back into his hole, confident that he is rid of the bird; but the bird immediately sticks his head out and swallows, obviously having eaten the worm. The bird then walks off, passing behind a tree. The cat immediately emerges, licking his chops and hiccupping, having obviously eaten the bird. He shows a sign reading "Sad ending ain't it?"

• Fair and Worm-er, a Warner Bros. cartoon directed by Chuck Jones with a similar plot.

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• The Early Bird Dood It! on IMDb