Naughty But Mice (1939)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Great Film overall

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

. . . are so hard to find at your local CVS or Walgreen store? In NAUGHTY BUT NICE, not only are there boxes and boxes of Irium tweezers, but the "Savoy Drug Store" shelves are teaming with scads of always hard-to-find Electric Hot Water Bottles, Radium Hair Pins, Repercolating Percolators, Magnetic Flasks, 2-Watt Clocks, and Electric Needles. When is the last time you have seen any of these Savoy staples in YOUR local chain store? Though President Teddy Roosevelt had broken up the Big Trusts such as Standard Oil long before Warner Bros. had even invented the "Talkies," the Warner Brass could read the handwriting already defacing Wall Street by the late 1930s. It spoke of Merger Mania, Franchise Proliferation, and Monopoly Money becoming Real. White Castle and Steak & Shake already were marching across America, and Warner knew that Kresge, K-Mart, Wal-Mart, CVS, and Walgreen would be nipping at our heels unless something was done immediately to nip the deflowering of the American Small Business Rose in the bud. NAUGHTY BUT MICE is just one of Warner's warnings about this, which included both features and shorts.

Chuck Jones's "Naughty But Mice" is mostly worth seeing as a historical reference: it was the first cartoon starring the cute-by-any-measure mouse Sniffles. In this case, he sneaks into a drug store looking for a cold remedy. It burns his mouth, and so he drinks whiskey to cool off...and only succeeds in getting drunk (why do cartoon characters like to booze themselves up so much?), at which point he befriends an electric razor (they had electric razors all the way back in 1939?). The razor then has to rescue him from a cat.Overall, not much happens here that I didn't predict; I guess that it took Jones a year or two to come up with really clever ideas. I can see why cute Sniffles eventually disappeared to make way for a certain acerbic rabbit and the later characters.Like I said: worth seeing to see who was Jones's first star, but not for much else.

A mouse arrives at a chemist's shop with a head cold looking for a remedy. He takes some medicine that burns him and drinks some whiskey to help stop the burning sensation but it only succeeds in making him very drunk. While drunk he befriends an electric razor and bumps into the store cat.Starting with a cute animation that makes it look more like those worthless cartoons that get shown at Christmas time, I was immediately put on the defensive. Usually I like the cartoons that have a sharp, imaginative wit about them and I assumed this wouldn't have that. Sadly I was bang on the money with this one as it turns out to be as lame and unimaginative as the animation style suggested it would be.The comedy was a little bit amusing at times but it never really did anything worth while – the plot itself doesn't really make use of the cat and spends more time with a humming friendly razor (to no good effect). I didn't laugh once and didn't find any of it even halfway amusing. A big reason for this is the lack of characters. The little mouse is just a little ball of fluff and the electric razor is just weird and not really given anything to do of any merit. The cat is a waste of space who is easily gotten rid of in a gag that is seen coming from miles away.Overall this is an unfunny little cartoon that lacks wit or imagination. You would do well to avoid this cartoon and look for some of the much better WB shorts that are out there.

And this cartoon proves it. It's a tiring cartoon that makes one want to sleep. Sniffles comes across an electric razor who has a cold as well as he does, and it all seems so droopy and melodramatic. I don't see the humor in these cartoons at all.Thank heavens Chuck Jones changed later on. I do not like Sniffles at all!* out of ****