Out West With Big Brownie is a 1960 Felix the Cat cartoon and the 82nd episode of the made-for-TV Felix cartoons, distributed by Trans-Lux and directed by Joe Oriolo.
The episode starts with Felix and Poindexter sitting at a ranch alongside its owner, Bart, just as a giant bear comes out of the nearby forest, knocking down two trees without effort. Felix yells to look out for the bear, whose name is Big Brownie. They all flee inside as the bear thrases the porch and walks off. Bart suggests using a beehive full of honey that he owns as a booby trap for the bear inside of his own cave. Poindexter refuses to help them, as he considers this a threat to his friend Big Brownie, defending him by saying he isn't purposefully being destructive. Bart leaves without him and Felix follows, while Poindexter decides he has to warn Brownie. Poinsy takes a shortcut to Brownie's cave as Felix and Bart walk all the way there. Inside, Poindexter runs into Brownie's cub, immediately befriending him and nicknaming him Little Brownie. Outside, Felix and Bart arrive at the cave, and Bart flees, ordering Felix to uncork the hive and throw it once he's inside, and then hightail it himself. Felix walks inside, but is surprised to run into Poindexter, who introduces him to Little Brownie. Felix notices that the bees are getting restless inside the hive he's holding, and he tells Poindexter to leave the cave. Poinsy complies, but takes Little Brownie with him. Felix tries to follow, but trips and drops the drive, uncorking it and releasing the swarm of angry bees, who trap him inside the cave as Felix calls for help.
The bees form a skull, and then an arrow and begin chasing Felix, who runs deeper into the cave—only to run right into Big Brownie. The bees flie right towards Brownie, who blocks their advance with his claws, sending them falling right to the floor. Outside, Bart thinks that the bees have taken care of Brownie, and takes a lasso with him to try and drag him out, only to come across Poindexter with Little Brownie. Bart immediately lassos Little Brownie, but Poindexter tells him to stop, but Bart refuses to listen and decides to use the cub as bait for Big Brownie. Inside the cave, Felix shakes hands with Brownie, thanking him for saving him from the bees, and they set off to find the bears cub. Back near the cabin, Bart has tied Little Brownie to a boulder on a nearby cliff, with the intent to trick the larger bear to climb on top of the unstable rock to save the cub, but sent it falling off the cliff once he climbs up it. Poindexter tries to reason with Bart, but he refuses to listen and is about to throw aside Poindexter, only for the kid to point out that Brownie and Felix have arrived. Brownie rushes to save his cub, with Poindexter trying to warn him about the trap—only for Brownie to stop, kick the rock aside, and catch his cub in mid-air. Poindexter looks on in amusment as the rock Bart intended to kill the bears with lands directly on his house at the bottom of the cliff, smashing it to pieces. As Bart has a tantrum, Felix wonders where Big and Little Brownie went. Poindexter jokes that they made a beeline home, and Felix has a laugh as the episode ends.
Tropes:
- Anti-Villain: Bart, the ranch owner Felix and Poindexter meet. While he crosses the line by trying to kill both Big Brownie and his cub Little Brownie by using a rigged boulder trap, he has an understandable reason for why he wants to get rid of the bears (Brownie had recently gone on a small rampage at his ranch, although that was an accident) with his character flaw being that he simply won't listen to reason when Poindexter tries to explain that Brownie isn't evil, but misunderstood.
- Bears Are Bad News: Big Brownie, a giant, brown bear who causes trouble for Felix and co. at the start of the episode. But as Poindexter insists, it turns out Brownie isn't bad, just clumsy and misunderstood.
- Didn't Think This Through: Bart rigs the boulder trap for Big Brownie on a cliff that's directly above his house. Even if his trap had succeeded in killing the bears, it would have destroyed his cabin along with them anyway!
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Bart's attempt to bait Big Brownie with his cub backfires when the boulder Little Brownie was tied too falls off the cliff and lands directly on his house below, smashing it to pieces.
- Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: This drives the conflict of "Out West with Big Brownie". The eponymous bear, in an act of clumsiness, unwittingly scares Felix and the local ranch owner, who work together to try and drive out the bear. Poindexter, however, realizes that Brownie isn't evil and tries to convince both of them to stop. Felix is eventually won over when Brownie saves him from a swarm of angry bees that he dropped while trying to use them on Brownie, but Bart, the ranch owner, refuses to believe the bear is anything more than a menace, and kidnaps his cub to lure the bear into a rigged boulder trap.
- No-Sell: Despite attempting to use the bees to drive out Big Brownie, Brownie effortlessly defeats the bees once they're released and fly towards him. Doubles as Truth in Television: bears have very tough hides in real life, so bee swarms usually don't bother them.
- Scary Stinging Swarm: Bart gives Felix a beehive full of wild bees to throw into Big Brownie's cave, but Felix accidentally releases it before he can leave the cave, trapping him inside.
- Villain Has a Point: While Bart ultimately turns out to be in the wrong for trying to kill the bears, he had a perfectly rational reason to try and do so. Bears are very dangerous animals, and Big Brownie had last been seen smashing apart trees and part of Bart's house earlier. Even after Poindexter turns out to be right about the bears being good (and correctly chalking up Big Brownie's little rampage to clumsiness), there's no way Bart was going to give a child the benefit of the doubt in favor of wild animals that could potentially jeopardize his safety further.
- Villain of the Week: While he's not really evil, Bart is a occasional character who serves as the episode's antagonist.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Bart - he goes out of his way to try and kill Brownie because he assumes the bear is nothing but trouble, despite Poindexter trying to reason with him. He even rigs a booby trap with Brownie's cub so that both of them can be killed from a high fall.
