Red Hot

Summary

In an era when animated shorts frequently blurred the lines between the mundane and the surreal, Bud Fisher's 'Red Hot' plunges the iconic duo, Mutt and Jeff, into an escalating spiral of absurdity predicated on a truly bizarre entrepreneurial venture. Tasked with the seemingly straightforward objective of hawking 'Hot Dogs'—with the crucial, unsettling caveat to procure *live* specimens—the lanky Mutt and his diminutive, perpetually exasperated counterpart, Jeff, embark upon a misadventure that quickly veers into anarchic pandemonium. Their initial success in snaring a hapless pup ignites a visceral, communal outrage among the local canine populace. What begins as a localized skirmish rapidly metastasizes into an overwhelming, four-legged insurgency, a relentless tide of snarling, barking indignation that engulfs Jeff entirely, while Mutt, ever the pragmatist, executes a hasty retreat. Yet, against all odds and the overwhelming numerical superiority of his furry assailants, Jeff orchestrates a surprising, albeit chaotic, reversal of fortune, culminating in a farcical, mass-canine exodus directly into the very industrial maw of a frankfurter factory, an ironic and darkly comedic resolution to their ill-conceived quest.

Synopsis

Mutt and Jeff start out to sell "Hot Dogs" and are cautioned to bring back live ones. All goes well until they capture a pup. Its mother arouses all the dogs in the neighborhood. There are dogs and still more dogs everywhere, they set on Jeff while Mutt makes his escape. Jeff, however, gets the best of them and chases the whole lot into the frankfurter factory.