Purdy and Fergurina
The Dirdy Birdy (1994) is an animated short created by John R. Dilworth, creator of Courage the Cowardly Dog. It features a dimwitted bird named Purdy who falls in love with a cat named Fergurina. The short consists of Purdy trying to win Fergurina's affections (by showing his backside of all things) and getting rejected (and pummeled) in the process.It can be seen here
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20 years after the creation of the original short, John Dilworth uploaded a redux of the original short on YouTube with one minute of never-before-seen footage.
Tropes:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Fergurina unsurprisingly doesn't appreciate a bird constantly mooning her to show his affection.
- All Love Is Unrequited: Purdy never gets with Fergurina.
- Ass Shove: One of the ways Fergurina retaliates to Purdy mooning her is by shoving a helium pump up his ass.
- Beat Still, My Heart: The one time Purdy doesn't court Fergurina by baring his behind in front of her is by offering her his still-beating heart after removing it from his body.
- Big Eyes, Little Eyes: Fergurina's eyes take up the majority of her head.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: Fergurina has large eyebrows.
- Cats Are Mean: Fergurina. Though to be fair she was just minding her own business until Purdy showed up.
- Cat Up a Tree: Fergurina is shown living in a tree in the short.
- Covert Pervert: While Fergurina is clearly not amused by Purdy mooning her, one of the items seen when she gathers her groceries is a picture of a muscular man in a speedo, which she eyes while grinning.
- Determinator: Purdy doesn't give up.
- Disappeared Dad: In the redux, we learn that Purdy's father left him and his mother years ago... but not before mooning his son!
- The Ditz: Purdy is shown to be quite stupid, the prime example being how he thinks that it is acceptable to express love by mooning the person you're attracted to.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Purdy's efforts to win Fergurina's heart are all for naught, but you'd kind of expect such results from constantly mooning the object of your affection.
- Flipping the Bird: when The Grim Reaper is about to take Purdy away, he give Fergurina the "chin flick" variation of this.
- Freudian Excuse: In the redux, it's revealed Purdy moons people because just before his dad left his family, he mooned Purdy.
- Gonk: Purdy. It's a common thing for Dilworth's cartoon apparently.
- Gory Discretion Shot: The scene where Fergurina uses a helium pump to inflate Purdy's ass cuts to a photograph showing John Dilworth making a shocked face when she uses a safety pin to pop Purdy's behind.
- The Grim Reaper: The personification of Death at one point shows up to collect Purdy. Fergurina chases him off by hitting him with a frying pan and then kicking him away.
- Here We Go Again!: Near the end of the short, Purdy and Fergurina bond over making scary faces at each other, but Purdy eventually gets back to mooning Fergurina and Fergurina in turn gets back to retaliating against his mooning.
- Interspecies Romance: Defied as Purdy does not win the girl... not like it was going to happen.
- Kill It with Fire: One of the many ways Fergurina tries to get rid of Purdy is by using a flamethrower on him.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Fergurina always retaliates against Purdy's poorly thought-out attempts at winning her affections with violence, but she does beat up the Grim Reaper to rescue Purdy from death.
- Mooning: Baring one's behind is Purdy's idea of showing affection. He got it from his father according to the redux.
- Nightmare Face: Purdy and Fergurina both exchange horrifying faces while laughing near the end of the short.
- Public Domain Soundtrack: The music used for Purdy's theme was used later in SpongeBob SquarePants when they used the tickle belt. It was also used on Bill Nye the Science Guy and Regular Show.
