Thank You Mask Man

Thank You Mask Man (1971)

This short animation set to Lenny Bruce's live monologue tells how the Lone Ranger hooks up with Tonto. With Bruce doing all the voices, this animation begins with local folks upset at the Lone Ranger because he won't stay around to be thanked after a good deed. So, he stays and finds he likes hearing "Thank you mask man." When their attention starts to shift elsewhere, he shocks and disgusts the townspeople with a final request. According to the cartoon’s producer John Magnuson, at early showings of this, gay audiences were upset by its apparent “fag-bashing”. And it’s true, part of the fun of the piece is just crying out “Masked man’s a fag”, scandalising and defacing the image of this all-American hero. But it’s within the larger context of Bruce’s analysis of heroism, and that the towns people reject the Masked Man is because of their prejudices, not because Bruce is asking us to endorse them. (from: http://ukjarry.blogspot.de/2010/01/352-lenny-bruce-thank-you-mask-man.html)

Date of release
1971-09-28
TMDB
5.0 / 10 (21)
Runtime
7m
Genres
Western, Animation, Comedy
Director
John Magnuson, Lenny Bruce

Casting

Interesting facts

Thank You Mask Man is an animated short film based upon a comedy routine by Lenny Bruce involving The Lone Ranger and Tonto. The film was produced by John Magnuson, and directed by Jeff Hale. Bruce intended to deconstruct homophobia and other issues explored within the routine.

Production

The film was completed in 1968. Its audio is derived from a recording of Bruce's routine. The short was made by San Francisco-based company Imagination, Inc. and directed by Jeff Hale, a former member of the National Film Board of Canada.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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