A Case of Spring Fever (1940)
Fed up with a broken couch spring, homeowner Gilbert wishes springs out of existence — only for a mischievous sprite named Coily to grant the wish and strip springs from every device in his life, from wristwatches to car engines, until Gilbert begs to have them back.
Made by the Jam Handy Organization as an industrial promotion for Chevrolet, A Case of Spring Fever dresses up a lesson about mechanical parts in cartoon whimsy rather than the driving-safety or moral instruction typical of the genre, and its gremlin-like sprite Coily later found new fans through Mystery Science Theater 3000 riffing and a reference on The Simpsons.
Background
A Case of Spring Fever was produced by the Jam Handy Organization as a sponsored film for Chevrolet, mixing live action with animation to dramatize how ordinary springs, including the ones in a car’s suspension, quietly do their job. Gilbert, fed up with a broken couch spring, wishes springs out of existence; a mischievous spring sprite called Coily grants the wish and strips springs from everything in his household. The film belongs to the industrial-film genre that Jam Handy built a business around, selling product information to moviegoers and schoolchildren disguised as cartoon comedy rather than as the safety or moral lessons typical of the era’s other sponsored shorts.
What to watch for
Coily’s taunt, “No springs!”, repeats as Gilbert fails with one spring-dependent object after another, from his pocket watch to the car’s shock absorbers, building toward the sales pitch for Chevrolet’s suspension system. The short found a second life decades later when Mystery Science Theater 3000 riffed it, and Coily has since turned up as a reference on The Simpsons, an odd afterlife for a Chevrolet sales film. It is worth noting how plainly the advertising intent sits alongside the cartoon logic, with Coily’s mischief serving no purpose beyond making Gilbert, and the audience, appreciate a part they would otherwise never think about.
