Northwest Hounded Police 1946

The Wolf, Frank Graham as the Escaped Prisoner, begins the short with a playful jailbreak inside the spoofed Alka-Fizz Prison. A sign above the gate cheekily proclaims “No Noose is Good Noose,” a pun that foreshadows the farcical chase ahead. Using a discreet pencil, he draws a crude door on the wall outside his cell, slips through, and escapes from the United States into Canada, setting a tone of wacky, wordless pursuit that will thread through the entire film.

Across the snowbound expanse of Mounty County, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police headquarters calls for a volunteer to track the fugitive. In a quick, comic setup, Sgt. McPoodle, Bill Thompson (voice), is effectively volunteered when all the other Mounties step back, revealing him as the sole hunter. Meanwhile, in the Yukon wilderness, the Wolf trudges through the frosty landscape, pausing to read a sequence of Burma-Shave–style signs that warn him he’s being followed by the Mountie. The signs read like a taunting chorus: “Don’t Look Now / Use Your Noodle / You’re Being Followed.” The camera then shifts to reveal McPoodle riding up behind him, establishing the movie’s running gag: the pursuit is a game of shifting perspectives, with the observer repeatedly appearing in new places as the chase unfolds.

The Wolf, clearly frightened, bolts for cover and discovers a seemingly vacant cabin at the base of a mountain. He closes a string of doors in a panic, only to find McPoodle calmly waiting in an armchair, flipping through a comic strip. The Wolf escapes through the back door, only to collide with McPoodle there as well. He darts up the mountainside and takes refuge in a bird’s nest at the summit, where a large egg sits among the branches. When the Wolf declares he’ll never be found, the egg cracks and McPoodle strides out. Panicked, the Wolf dives into the lake below, thinking he’s momentarily safe—until he spots McPoodle swimming among the fish.

The chase continues with ingenuity and slapstick, as the Wolf navigates a taxi ride, the airport, and an airplane, all while McPoodle remains a step behind. The pursuit lands the Wolf on a tiny atoll in the middle of the ocean, marked only by two rocks. He jokes that he has “caught on to the pattern,” clearly expecting the larger rock to betray him. But, in a final twist, McPoodle emerges from under the smaller rock, catching him off guard once more.

Driven by the need to outsmart his pursuer, the Wolf races to New York City, where he dashes through the streets, nearly propelling himself off the edge of the film. He finds refuge in a movie theater, hoping to vanish among the audience. An MGM cartoon segment begins, and McPoodle appears on the cinema screen to greet him, forcing another escape. Desperation pushes the Wolf to seek a plastic-surgeon fix for a new face. A rapid-fire procedure leaves him with a look strikingly similar to McPoodle, and he begs the surgeon to restore his original visage—only to discover the surgeon’s face has changed to resemble the very same target.

In a bid for a final respite, the Wolf tries to feed himself to a lion at the zoo, but discovers he’s sharing the belly with McPoodle. He bursts from the beast’s mouth and hides in a hotel, only to find that room is a prison cell of its own. Turning to the audience for one last self-aware monologue, the Wolf wonders aloud, “I wonder if there coulda been more than one o’ them little guys.” The scene then widens to reveal hundreds of McPoodles gathered in the hallway, who respond in unison to his question with a collective, echoing, “What do you think, brother?”