The vol. 2, no. 6 of Mickey Mouse Magazine, dated March 1937, features a very interesting 3 and a half pages long story titled 'Home, Sweet Home!'. The lead character is Little Red Riding Hood, who had also appeared in the cartoon short Big Bad Wolf (1934). The story kicks off with the little girl getting fed up with getting continuously scolded by her parents, which also includes getting a light slap on her face. When she protests that she doesn't like home anymore, her father literally tells her to pack her stuff and leave... Once on her own, she meets Big Bad Wolf who is surprisingly kind to her! Eventually, we are told (by her parents) that Mickey and the gang were secretly following the wolf and the reason of his kindness was that he was aware he was being watched... It is a very well-written story which enables the readers' to enter the mindset of the little girl completely. In addition, the unexpected behavior of the Big Bad Wolf does evoke a perfect aura of uncannines. This story would make a perfect subject for psychoanalitic scrunity. I will not go into it at length here, but cannot refrain from noting that the German (the native language of Freud, mind you) for 'uncanny' is umheimlich which literaly means home-like but not home. The behaviour of Big Bad Wolf whom she meets outside home is the polar opposite of Red Riding Hood's parents at home. He appears as everything she wants to see at home, but he is not of home. Anyway...
The same issue of MMM also includes this one-pag gag-comics with Big Bad Wolf, with inferior-quality art:
The subsequent issue, vol. 2 no. 7, dated April 1937, features even more material with the Big Bad Wolf, even though none are as interesting as the 'Home, Sweet Home!' story in the previous issue. The story titled '$500 Reward' is set in the wild west and has bounty hunter Mickey on the trail of the Big Bad Wolf.
'April Fool Candy' has Big Bad Wolf forcing the Busy Pig to invite him over to a party, only to have trick played on him.
'The Moo-Maid' is the best of the lot in this issue. Here, Clarabella Cow has been designated as the lifeguard of a beach frequented by the folk of Disneyville. The part where she spends so much time on taking care on how she looks before comingto the drowning Big Bad Wolf's rescue is hilarious.
In additon to the illustrated text stories, the Big Bad Wolf, together with his sons, also appear in the below gag:
The next Big Bad Wolf appearance among the MMM issues available in my collection is in vol. 2, no. 11, dated Aug. 1937, where his face (in an awful drawing) appears on a balloon in a piece titled 'Let's Have A Picnic':
With this long post, I round up my coverage of Big Bad Wolf appearances in Mickey Mouse Magazine till I get more issues to my collection. For coming posts, I intend to go back to covering post-war Li'l/Bad Wolf comics, so stay tuned on.
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