32. It's Got Me Again! (1932)

Release date: May 14th, 1932

Series: Merrie Melodies

Director: Rudolf Ising

Starring: Johnny Murray, The Rhythmettes (Chorus)

Another cartoon with more “firsts”! This is the first cartoon to credit Tom McKimson, one of the McKimson brothers (Bob, Charles, and Tom) who would later serve as one of Bob Clampett's layout artists, Bob McKimson of course becoming Clampett’s top animator (tied with rod Scribner) and later moving on as a director. This is also the first Warner Bros. cartoon nominated for an academy award! Unfortunately it didn’t win, losing to Disney’s Flowers and Trees. Warner Bros. would receive many nominations as we’ll see, but only won 5 awards out of 1000+ cartoons! (Tweetie Pie, For Scent-imental Reasons, Speedy Gonzales, Birds Anonymous, and Knighty Knight Bugs) Anyway, enough names. This cartoon features the antics of a gang of jolly mice, which are rudely interrupted by a hungry cat.

In the middle of the night, a mouse takes furtive footsteps out of its hole. It sneaks around a mouse trap, but the chime of a clock scares it and its tail gets caught in the trap.

He seeks his mouse hole for refuge, and the trap slips off its tail and hits the wall. Safe from the metal clutches, the mouse cautiously makes a return and steals the cheese. All is well.

There’s a lovely pan of the room as the mouse makes its way to the other side, tiptoeing over an xylophone, squeezing through a French horn sliding down a violin, bouncing off a drum, and sliding onto the crank of a phonograph, giving it a few whirls.

Music gets going and the mouse declares “Okay fellas, on with the dance!” 

An armada of mice stream out of the hole, using an accordion to lower themselves down. There’s even an elderly mouse on crutches (ha!) that keeps spinning around his crutches when the little mice run between his legs.

The mice sing the titular number of “It’s Got Me Again!” While frolicking around the record, the one mouse on the record tripping and spinning around in endless loops. Frank Marsales’ music score is beautiful as always! The mouse flies off of the record, bouncing off a horn, a banjo, etc, using a metronome as a javelin to pull himself back on top of the phonograph.

Process repeating as the mouse gets thrown off of the record again, he slides through a clarinet, and out come a tiny army of mice. They jump on the drum, completely synchronized with a rolling snare drum march! I can’t eat this up enough! The animation is so tactile and fun, and the music is synchronized perfectly. A mouse plays “The Girl I Left Behind Me/The Waxie’s Dargle” on a fife, the mice sitting on the exposed holes of the fife sprinting into the air with each note played. Animation reused from hold anything gives us a line of mice (who uncannily look like Mickey—i know all the mice and foxes do, but they’re sporting pants and shoes too) who march in time with the beat.

One by one the rodent soldiers take their exit, except for one, who trips on a nail in the midst of a hurry to catch up with his brethren. He falls and lands straight into a spittoon, much to his public ridicule. He gets out and blows a raspberry into a tuba. I love that! It amuses me to no end how many raspberries are used in these cartoons. Spittoons are another common object.

Meet the enemy, a hungry cat in a rainstorm. The cat looks inside at the festivities and licks its lips—trouble is brewing. I love how ugly this cat is, especially the big irises and conjoined eyes. Good design on their part! 

We cut back to a piano, where two mice burst out and tinker around on the piano in a fight. A gangster and a hapless victim! I wasn’t expecting that whatsoever. I wonder if Friz Freleng animated this sequence? The musical timing and the suspicious tinkering around accompanied by piano music reminds me of his Sylvester and Tweety cartoons. This is a great scene though, synchronization on point and the concept of a mobster mouse is hilarious.

Back to the cat, who’s made his way onto the roof, looking in through a skylight. He shoves himself into a chimney, granting himself entrance into the house through a fireplace. Spotting a cuckoo clock, he attacks the bird that comes out of it and swallows it. As all cats do. Consequently, each time the cat opens its mouth, a “cuckoo” sounds, which alerts the mice.

Time for a good ol’ cat and mouse chase! The cat corners one of the mice, who bursts into a rendition of “It’s Got Me Again!”, doing an Al Jolson impression. I’ll say it once and i’ll say it many times again (so be warned!), the music is phenomenal! Frank Marsales really adapted well to the various moods of the cartoon, from the suspicious opening to the celebratory party, to the furtive nature of the cat to the hurried chase sequence, and now to the warbly, jazzy “farewell” underscore.

Just as the mouse’s family is going to have to shop for a tombstone, we get a view of a group of mice using a musical bow as a hunting bow, complete with a drumstick arrow. The drumstick shoots the cat squarely in the ass, sending it running.

More mice join in on the fun, using a harp as a bow and sending an armada of drumsticks flying. Great sound design with the plucky harp strings playing each time a shot is fired! The cat tries to dodge the arrows, but to no avail.

Of course, we have a flamethrower too. I LOVE THIS IT’S SO SMART. You lull your audience into a certain mindset, expecting more musical MacGyver patented weapons... and then you randomly pull out a flamethrower from nowhere. It’s genius! 

The cat runs into a bass drum and briefly becomes dazed. However, he has little time to rest, as a mouse blows a streamer in the cat’s face, sending him running. And possibly best of all, we have a shot of a mouse shooting needles from the record player like a machine gun, complete with the sound effects! The cat leaps out of the window, and all is well, iris out.

Certainly worthy of it’s academy award nomination! The pacing was just right, as was the story structure. Frank Marsales’ music was beautiful as ever! A LOT of fun visuals, like the mice being divided by the clarinet and jumping on the drum, and the mouse shooting needles at the cat. This is probably my second favorite Merrie Melody after You Don’t Know What You’re Doin’!. Certainly worthy of a watch!