City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold

In this sequel to City Slickers, once again, the “cowboy who shows no pain” steals the show in a series of fast-paced and well-timed classic gags and visual jokes.

“Billy Crystal brought us in while they were shooting, so we were way ahead. We literally had six months, which is a lot of time. But that was just making up for the pressure we’d been in with the first City Slickers,” says Bob Kurtz.

The opening titles of the City Slickers sequel mark another successful collaboration between title designer Wayne Fitzgerald and animator Bob Kurtz. Once again, the main character – the “cowboy who shows no pain” (as Bob Kurtz calls him) – features in a series of fast-paced and well-timed classic gags and visual jokes. We also see the return of the bull and the cactus. The ghost represents Mitch Robbins’s (Billy Christal’s) feelings of guilt, as he believes he has accidentally buried alive his good friend Curly.

Completely in accordance with the rules of cartoon logic, the credits itself are  objects for the characters to interact with, which adds a lot to the liveliness of the animation. This title sequence is truly an animated short in its own right.