William Nolan and Walter Lantz | Going to Blazes / 1933 [animated cartoon]

the dancing pansy firehouse assistant

by Douglas Messerli

 

Ray Abrams, Fred Avery, Cecil Surry, Jack Carr and Don Williams (animators), William Nolan and Walter Lantz (directors) Going to Blazes / 1933 [animated cartoon]

 

The Bill Nolan animated cartoon from 1933, Going to Blazes, appeared to me, upon several visits, to be yet another quite obvious example of the 1930s pictures’ fascination with queers which they depicted as pansies. In fact, this 7-and-a-half-minute cartoon features one of the longest presentations of a dancing sissy in film history, a fireman, dressed in high boots, whipping up a storm of loony hand flaps and other fruity gestures.*

     Who would have thought that for some readers it might have been coded? Apparently, the writer of the Wikipedia entry has severe problems in recognizing a “real” woman, even in cartoon form, from the drag “imposters,” describing the dancing panze as a “firewoman,” which not only obliterates most of the film’s attempts of humor for the first third of the movie, but fails explain why the mischievous babe is so intent on attacking the figure that in the process he axes the fire hose or why, later, the fairy is so expendable that he’s sent twice down a manhole, from which, on the first occasion, he escapes to utter in a falsetto voice, with hands on hips (the stock emblem of a pansy) “You ole meanie!”—the only line of full dialogue in this cartoon.

     I assure you that this was animators Ray Abrams, Fred Avery, Cecil Surry, Jack Carr, and Don Williams’ depiction of an irrepressible dancing queen, not a “firewoman,” who, as the Wikipedia writer proposes, has “mental problems.”

     In fact, the rest of the film, which features a laughing fire raging out of control, and Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit’s attempts to dowse the flames while faced with an out-of-control fire hydrant and the continued nasty actions of the baby snookums, is not near as humorous. So incompetent is Oswald, in fact, that you almost side with the sneaky fire, who tickles the toes of a heavy sleeper and threatens the female figure who Oswald clumsily attempts, and finally manages to save, he awarded, in the end, with her kiss. She, I assure you, is a cartoon woman.

     Although almost all sources state that the work was directed by Walter Lantz and William Nolan, a couple of seemingly informed commentaries insist that Nolan was the lone director, but that the production, as a Walter Lantz product, demanded his name be co-listed.  

 

*The title obviously suggests a fire that is out of control, or a situation that has gotten out of hand, which clearly is the case with out “dancing queer.” In the urban meaning, a “blaze” is also a male that everyone loves and instantly falls in love with, but also a person who is heavily under the influence of marijuana. I don’t know if that latter meaning of the word was common, however, in the 1930s.

 

Los Angeles, November 17, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (November 2025).