Mexican Joyride-Safety zone gag ?

[robtadrian]

Hello friends, good to be back (I couldn't access for a while)
here's one that's been puzzling me since I was young..in the
above cartoon the bull is chasing Daffy with a machine gun...Daffy
runs into a marked off safety zone which stops the bull, however then the bull gets off a bus into the zone where he continues to shoot at Daffy..I'm assuming this is a wartime reference..but
whatever logic I use..i can't sort out this gag! thanks Robt

[happyheathen]

again feeling old, very old...

years ago, bus stops (and trolley/streetcar stops) had those 'safety zones' for those boarding/disembarking the bus, etc.

These were no-drive zones, meaning 'pedestrians are protected until they step outside the box, whereupon they become fair game...' (OK, I'm cynical :cool: )

So - If the bull is playing the role of car, Daffy is off-limits. However, if he is getting off the bus, he can enter the zone, and once Daffy exits the zone...

these zones survive in SF (as raised islands) - anywhere else?

[J Lee]

There used to be one next to the Flatiron Building on Broadway in New York for Fifth Ave. buses to turn around at, back before the street went one-way in the late 1960s.

Most of the others disappeared when trolley service vanished, because it was easier to get the buses to the curb of a street than it was for a trolley, but as a native New Yorker, I'm sure Arthur Davis saw a lot of safety zones growing up (and Freleng also used the gag in "Streamline Gretta Green" so they were probably also common in the Los Angeles area in the 1930s).