The Mice Will Play (1938)

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Director: TEX AVERY. Story: Jack Miller. Animation: Sid Sutherland. Music director: Carl W. Stalling. Color by Technicolor. Producer: Leon Schlesinger. Copyright 18 December 1938 by The Vitaphone Corp. A Warner Bros. "Merrie Melodies" cartoon. U.S. release: 31 December 1938. 7 minutes. COMMENT: Hungry, fun-loving mice break into an experimental laboratory where Dr I.M. Nutts (not seen) has caged a beautiful white mouse. After a number of mediocre spot gags (a mouse lights up intermittently after drinking neon fluid) intercut with shots of the prisoner and a ravenous cat on the prowl, the white mouse is rescued and marries her rescuer. In an ironic fade-out twist, just as the drooling cat is about to pounce on the happy couple, they remind him they intend to raise lots of fat little mice. The cat decides to wait. This bizarre, somewhat unpleasant iris out is the only indication that Tex Avery had anything to do with this one, which is otherwise rather ordinary and lacks Avery's characteristic touches such as the bulging-eyed double takes and the frantic pace. However, he does make time for a Song: "Two Happy Mice".

To the casual cartoon fan, this will look unrecognizable as a Tex Avery cartoon as the main characters are cutesy mice. Because of this, many Avery fans frequently pan this title. Comparing it to the faster-paced edgier shorts he directed just before this one such as A Feud There Was and Johnny Smith and Poker-huntas, this seems like several steps backward to his 1936-37 shorts. In my opinion this is a whole lot better than the earlier similar, but more sappy, A Sunbonnet Blue (1937). True to the spirit of Termite Terrace, there are a few topical gags which likely got laughs from a 1938 audience that seem like non-sequitors to modern viewers. (The $30 Every Thursday was a pension movement during the Great Depression that was widely considered a scam; It was a California Proposition on the 1938 ballot, but lost.) Avery largely moved away from shorts of this kind after 1938 and his shorts improved each year, developing the over-the-top zaniness he has been celebrated for. Hopefully, a nicer print (with original titles) will surface soon for the public to see again.

. . . with its patient predator, rodent wedding, and mouse orchestra? Hidden deep in the bonus feature menu of Disc Two of the "Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles," this Warner Bros. animated short tries to deflect casual analysis by opening in the "Experimental Laboratory" of "Dr. I.M. Nutts," who apparently turns out to be a Black Cat. For most of this seven-minute piece, the mice have the run of this lab, playing with a stethoscope, the X-Ray Machine, microscopes, liquid neon (?!), and so forth. However, early on there's a hint about the underlying serious content of this short, as a group of mice gnaw out the book title GONE WITH THE WIND in the Lab's baseboards. After "Johnny" Mouse rescues "Susie" Mouse ("Experimental Subject #12") from a cage, a Rodent Wedding is followed by an orchestral rendition of some obscure Warner Sheet Music song. Then the feline Dr. Nutts overhears Susie predicting a litter of fat mice, and he defers his plans for an immediate wedding couple snack in favor of a later Mouseketeer Feast. Putting two and two together, Warner is predicting that shortly after the release of TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE (Susie's number in captivity, remember?) President Cruz will appoint Supreme Court Justices even more Originalist than Justice Scalia, and America will be forced to revert to the Good Ol' GONE WITH THE WIND Racist Slavery Days, as mandated in the Original U.S. Constitution, complete with Dr. Nutts' Foodstock Breeding Program.

Tex Avery did a triptych of "cute little mouse" cartoons, but not to worry, gang, they have the Avery backspin, particularly this one. The three, Ain't We Got Fun, A Sunbonnet Blue and this one, were all quite recognizable as Avery shorts and the end gag on this one is prototypical Avery. This one has a fair amount of singing and is more cutesy than usual, but is definitely an Avery short, without a doubt! Well worth looking for. Recommended.