3 Misses is a 1998 animated short film (11 minutes) by Paul Driessen.
It consists of three short cartoons centered on the theme of damsels in distress. In the first, a cartoon set in the modern day, a man is reading a paper when he sees a woman fall off a building. In the second, set in the The Wild West, a cowboy hears screams and sees that a woman has been tied to the railroad tracks. In the third, set in a fairy tale land, seven dwarves are actually reading Snow White when they hear a wicked witch, bearing a poisoned apple to a princess in Snow White style. In all three cartoons, the protagonists rush to save the endangered women, and they have silly comic misadventures on the way.
Tropes:
- Always a Bigger Fish: One of the Dwindling Party dwarves is plucked out of the rescue race by a gigantic child—who is then picked up in turn by an enormous wolf.
- Anthology Film: Three different short cartoons of men trying to save damsels. The three cartoons are all cut together, unlike a classic anthology film where the stories play in sequence.
- Banister Slide: The modern man slides down a banister when he can't get the elevator. But the friction starts to burn his butt, so he turns around and licks the banister to lubricate it as he speeds down to the ground floor.
- Black Comedy: The princess in the fairy tale dies off-screen but the other two "misses" die in comical fashion. The man in the modern story rushes outside to catch the woman, only to completely miss her as she slams into the ground, organs popping out of the crater. The cowboy races to the train tracks and heroically diverts the train, saving the woman, only for a train coming from the other direction to squash her. All the camera shows is her blood-spattered hat drifting into frame.
- Chained to a Railway: Played for laughs, as a woman chained to a railway in the Wild West screams for help as a bumbling cowboy races to save her.
- Damsel in Distress: Played for laughs, as three damsels find themselves in comically dangerous situations, as would-be heroes try and save them.
- Door Judo: The man in the modern story tries to leave his apartment, but the door is locked and he can't find a key. He then proceeds to ram the door, only for his wife to come home and open it at that moment, causing him to careen out into the hallway.
- Dwindling Party: The seven dwarves are taken out in increasingly silly ways. One is stepped on by a giant. Another is lulled to sleep by a field of poppies, Wizard of Oz-style. Eventually, only a single dwarf makes it to the rendezvous with the witch at the princess's cottage.
- Happy Ending: For the fairy tale story only. Prince Charming shows up at the princess's glass coffin, as the single remaining dwarf stands vigil. Only he's the wrong Prince Charming, the one from Cinderella, and he tries to force the glass slipper onto Snow White's foot. Finally the frustrated dwarf kisses Snow White himself. She revives, sends the prince packing, and pulls the dwarf into her coffin for sex as the cartoon ends.
- Injun Country: Among the dangers the cowboy braves are the arrows from unseen Native Americans. One arrow sticks in his hat.
- Intercontinuity Crossover: Characters from each story find their way into the others. The man in the modern story opens a door and finds Red Riding Hood and the wolf (and the dwarf) from the fairy tale story. The cowboy comes to the edge of a cliff and sees the woman from the modern story falling. The same prince, who turns out to be Prince Charming, gallops through all three stories and witnesses the deaths of the damsels in each.
- Limited Animation: Paul Driessen's signature style of deliberately crude one-line drawings.
- Pun-Based Title: It's 3 Misses because there are three damsels aka "misses" in distress, but also, it's because all three protagonists fail to save their misses.
- Silence Is Golden: No dialogue in the cartoon.
- Traveling at the Speed of Plot: The woman sure does take her own sweet time falling from that building, as the man goes on a long and difficult race to catch her.
