Summary
Buster's Picnic" unfolds as a cascade of domestic incompetence and escalating outdoor pandemonium. The patriarch, Buster, proves comically inept at even the simplest picnic preparations, leaving his capable companion, Mary Jane, to shoulder the load. Their journey to leisure is quickly derailed when Buster's mischievous baby brother systematically jettisons their entire luncheon basket to the eagerly following family dog, Tige, leaving the party famished upon arrival. Resourceful (and perhaps morally ambiguous) Tige then 'acquires' a replacement meal from unsuspecting neighboring picnickers. However, his indulgence in a cream-covered cake leads to a misunderstanding where his frothing mouth is mistaken for signs of rabies, sparking widespread panic. The chaos further intensifies with the accidental dislodging of a hornet's nest, scattering the entire camp in a frantic retreat. The grand finale sees the youthful trio, in a last-ditch escape, use a tablecloth as an impromptu parachute, plummeting them over a cliff-side into the ocean, from which they are eventually rescued. The film concludes with a whimsical, historical nod, echoing Samuel Pepys' famous diary entry, "and so home to bed," cementing the day's events as a memorable, if disastrous, entry in their lives.
Trouble starts at the very beginning with Buster's characteristically masculine inability to cut the bread for sandwiches and otherwise help. Mary Jane does the work. Once started, Buster's baby brother tosses the contents of the luncheon basket to the trailing Tige so that there is no food when the picnic grounds are reached. Tige makes amends by stealing the luncheon of a neighboring party. Also having eaten the cream covering off a cake he creates a panic because all the picnickers think he is frothing at the mouth and suffering from the rabies. To add to the comfort (?) of the recreation-seekers a hornet's nest is dislodged and the hornets rout the entire picnic-camp crowd. For a finale a table cloth becomes a parachute and carries the youthful trio over a cliff-side into the ocean. All rescued, it becomes an entry in a Samuel Pepys diary "and so home to bed."
