A Bout with a Trout

A Bout with a Trout is one of the mini cartoons. Released in the year of 1947.

Synopsis
Lulu decides to play hooky and go fishing instead of going school. After getting knocked out while fishing, she dreams about an adventure where she learns why school is important.

Plot
After being called by her mother, Lulu wakes up with a short amount of time to prepare. After getting dressed and having breakfast, she runs her way to school. Upon arriving, however, she swaps her learning materials for a fishing pole from the inside the steps to the school entrance and goes fishing. On her way, her shoulder angel and devil try to sway in her into their respective directions. The devil wins, and Lulu makes the decision to skip school. At the pond, she casts her pole and lands a bite, but the fish was quite strong, resulting in a tug-of-war struggle. Finally, Lulu falls back and hits her head on the tree she was leaning against, knocking herself out and falling into a dreamlike state.

The fantasy is filled with an academic-themed setting with "Swinging on a Star" as its theme song, where Lulu experiences with and as the animals depicted by the song: a mule, a pig, a fish, and a monkey. After those experiences, she enters a talking schoolhouse with living letters as students, who welcome her entrance. They then form a conga line with Lulu on the front, and she later goes down a path of letters and books on certain school supplies for transportation across. After ascending a long staircase of books, she reaches the moon and its shine puts a white cap and gown on her. The moon then hands her a diploma, followed by Lulu shaking hands with a globe, but it appears to be doing it a few seconds longer than it's supposed to.

Lulu then wakes up, and it turns out that was her holding the fishing pole shaking from the fish on the hook. Learning the lesson from her dream, she throws the fish back - and snaps and discards her fishing pole - into the pond. She runs back to school as quickly as she can and takes out the books from the steps, although too late, as the school hour has already ended by the time she arrived. As her punishment, the teacher makes Lulu write several lines on the chalkboard after school.

Music

 * Swinging on a Star (Bing Crosby)