"Hollywood Steps Out" is a 1941 Merrie Melodies animated short directed by Tex Avery.
In this cartoon, Hollywood's brightest stars (at the time of the short's premiere) are at a swanky nightclub for a night of dancing and dating. Many gags and situations involving those stars ensue.
See also the 1947 Bugs Bunny short "Slick Hare", which also has celebrity caricatures and sight gags involving them, though not on this short's level, but had a more substantial plot of Elmer trying to kill Bugs so that Humphrey Bogart can have rabbit for dinner.
"Hollywood Steps Out" provides examples of:
- Bankruptcy Barrel: Sally Rand's erotic bubble dance ends with Harpo Marx popping her bubble with a slingshot, revealing a barrel behind it.
- Bowdlerization: When this cartoon aired on The WB, two scenes involving matches and cigarettes were cut:
- Greta Garbo as a cigarette girl lighting Cary Grant's cigarette with her oversized high-heeled feet.
- Harpo Marx giving Greta Garbo a hot-foot and Garbo's Delayed Reaction.
- Celebrity Cameo: Loads and loads of them (some of which are well-known even today, while others will need a quick Google, Wikipedia, or IMDb search to figure out who they are, what their movies are, and whether or not they had an impact on American cinema). In alphabetical order: Don Ameche, Mischa Auer, Wallace Beery, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Claudette Colbert, Ronald Colman, Jerry Colonna, Bing Crosby, Errol Flynn, Henry Fonda, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Judy Garland, Paulette Goddard, Cary Grant, Oliver Hardy, Rita Hayworth, Sonja Henie, J. Edgar Hoover, Boris Karloff, Buster Keaton, Kay Kyser, Dorothy Lamour, Peter Lorre, Groucho and Harpo Marx, Adolphe Menjou, William Powell, Tyrone Power, George Raft, Sally Rand, Edward G. Robinson, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney, Norma Shearer, Ann Sheridan, C. Aubrey Smith, Ned Sparks, James Stewart, Lewis Stone, Leopold Stokowski, Spencer Tracy, Arthur Treacher, The Three Stooges and Johnny Weissmuller. A scene with Gary Cooper dancing with Shirley Temple went unused.
- Comically Missing the Point: Peter Lorre, watching Sally Rand, comments "I haven't seen such a beautiful bubble since I was a child."
- Creator Cameo: Leon Schlesinger, producer of the Warner Bros. cartoons at the time, is caricatured alongside his assistant Henry Binder.
- Disguised in Drag: The woman that Clark Gable has been chasing throughout the short is revealed at the end to be Groucho Marx.
- Exorcist Head: Clark Gable does this upon first witnessing a woman walk by him that he decides to follow.
- Fat Comic Relief: Oliver Hardy is revealed dancing with not one, but two women at the same time.
- Flat Joy: During Sally Rand's dance:Ned Sparks: You boys having a good time?Boris Karloff, Arthur Treacher, Buster Keaton, and Mischa Auer: (never changing expression) Yes.
- Guide Dang It!: Unless you are extremely well-versed in 1940s pop culture, you're going to need one; Wikipedia to the rescue!
- Hurricane of Puns: Cary Grant's speech is full with literal references to films he starred in. J. Edgar Hoover, known as "G-man" says the word "Gee" several times.
- Lorre Lookalike: The Trope Codifier. Avery's caricature of Peter Lorre, with Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes, Gag Lips, Goofy Buckteeth, and greasy hair inspired the design of many other parodies, both within other Looney Tunes and beyond.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Greta Garbo gives a dull "Ouch" when Harpo Marx gives her a hotfoot.
- Mickey Mousing: Several scenes, including the opening shot of the searchlights, are timed to the rhumba beat of the music.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Instead they were all caricatured and imitated.
- Pokémon Speak: Ann Sheridan, who was known as the "Oomph Girl", utters the word "Oomph" over and over again.
- Reference Overdosed: Some movie stars are still recognizable to modern audiences, like Cary Grant, Greta Garbo, Oliver Hardy, Johnny Weissmuller, Clark Gable, James Stewart, Mickey Rooney, the Three Stooges, James Cagney, Harpo and Groucho Marx, but others not so much. In some cases the actors are recognizable, but the jokes are nowadays not very clear.
- Rotoscoping: Used for Clark Gable and Dorothy Lamour's rumba dancing, which is noticeably subtler (and in the latter's case sexier) than the other, more exaggerated characters'. Also, for Sally Rand's bubble dance.
- Running Gag
- Clark Gable chasing a woman.
- Bing Crosby being interrupted by a racehorse and jockey, a nod to his bad luck gambling at the track.
- Shout-Out
- Cary Grant's speech references his movies My Favorite Wife, The Awful Truth and The Front Page (a movie that doesn't star him, but the remake His Girl Friday does).
- A shot shows some tables reserved for celebrities, including Bette Davis, Kate Smith (a large table, because she was known for being overweight) and comic strip/radio series characters Blondie, her husband Dagwood, a high chair for their Baby Dumpling, and on the floor nearby, a fire hydrant for their dog Daisy.
- James Stewart skips out on dancing with Dorothy Lamour, leaving behind a sign reading "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington".
- Mickey Rooney and Lewis Stone play the parts they were known for in the Andy Hardy film series.
- The scene of Henry Fonda where his "mother" calls for him is a reference to the popular radio sitcom The Aldrich Family.
- Smoking Is Glamorous: Greta Garbo sells cigarettes to Cary Grant.
- Standard Snippet: The conga tune is "Anabella", one of only two conga tunes used in cartoons. During the bubble dance we hear "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles". The girl or rather Groucho that Clark Gable chases is introduced with "The Lady in Red".
- Three Stooges Shout-Out: They appear poking and hitting one another to the beat.
- Time Marches On: Mickey Rooney was the last living person depicted in the cartoon before he passed away in 2014. The passing of time has also made a lot of jokes in this cartoon incomprehensible to modern viewers without an Internet search. Not only because some of the movie stars are nowadays obscure, but also because some of the stock jokes about the still recognizable stars have vanished from pop culture, like Greta Garbo's infamous big feet and Bing Crosby's bad luck at the horse races.
- The Trickster: Harpo Marx sticks matches under Garbo's feet and uses a slingshot to bust Sally Rand's bubble.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: The last gag of the short is Clark Gable finally catching up with the woman he's been pursuing all night, only to reveal that it's Groucho Marx.Groucho: "Fancy meeting you here!"
- Wolf Whistle: The students of Kay Kyser whistle appreciatively after witnessing Sally Rand's famously erotic bubble dance.
- Work Off the Debt: Mickey Rooney (in his Andy Hardy role), receives a $50 check note and has a talk with his "father" Lewis Stone (who played Andy's father). The scene then fades to the two of them washing dishes to the rhumba beat.
