40. You're Too Careless with Your Kisses (1932)

Release date: September 10th, 1932

Series: Merrie Melodies

Director: Rudolf Ising

Starring: Johnny Murray (Wilbur), Rudy Ising (Spider), The Rhythmettes (Chorus)

After two Bosko cartoons in a row, we’re back to Merrie Melodies, this time with You’re Too Careless with Your Kisses!. A drunk bee comes home to his upset wife, who discovers she needs him after all after being kidnapped by a menacing ladybug.

In pure prohibition-era fashion, the cartoon opens with a bee staggering home drunk. He swings across some flower stems and slides down a few lavenders along his way. The visuals are amusing, especially the bee getting close to the camera as he swings around on a flower stem, but the scene drags on longer than it should, loosening the comedic timing. Like in all of these shorts, the music makes the scene bearable.

He comes home to his hive as quietly as he can, sneaking up to bed. To reduce any noise, he takes off his shoes and scales the staircase in his socks, yet the shoes take a life of their own and follow him as he shushes them. Towards the top, the bee tumbles over the staircase (which, inebriated as he may be, I can’t fault him for. Whatever genius architect who built the hive forgot to put a banister in) and lands on a couch cushion, which springs out of place and propels him to the top.

Mission accomplished, the bee sneaks into the bedroom without waking up his wife. That is, until he trips, sounding an alarm clock and the curtains to raise.

His wife immediately identifies the problem, and scolds him for getting into the spiked honey again (also revealing that his name is Wilbur, not to be confused with the bratty kitten that makes Bosko’s life a living nightmare). Visibly upset, Wilbur’s wife begins to sob. Wilbur attempts to rationalize things, protesting “But honey—“ to which she snaps “Don’t you 'honey' me!”

Launch the musical sequence, where the wife sings “You're Too Careless with Your Kisses” as she cries. The vocals are questionable as always, yet the song remains catchy. Wilbur, of course, tries to kiss her and make up, but she isn’t having it, getting undressed and insisting that she’ll have to do his work for him. The drunk Wilbur just laughs and says “Ain’t that just like a woman?” Oh, you '30s cartoons and your dated sexism jokes! 

A beautiful chorus of harmonized voices finish where the wife left off in the song as she passed by various flowers, lowering the bottom half of her body to scoop some honey and lifting it back up again.

Heavy rain interrupts the bee’s duties, and she hurriedly seeks shelter in a sketchy house, inhabited by a sleazy ladybug (identical to the spider in red-headed baby). The ladybug snags the key and swallows it, ensuring the bee can’t escape. It seems every cartoon has a kidnapping of some sort! I need to start a tally of how many kidnappings we’ve seen so far.

The bee senses trouble and seeks a closet for safety. I love this next line. The ladybug follows her, and before he corners her in the closet he turns to the audience and sneers “Ahhhhh! They tell me I’m crazy, but I’m NOT! ...much!” What a good line!

Following her, the ladybug shuts the door behind them, blacking out the scene. He tells her “Aha, and now you’re in the hands of the ol' maestro.”

Back to Wilbur, who hears his honey's pleas for help. He uses a flower as a trumpet to call together all the bees in the area to save his girl. A beehive deflates as a steady stream of bees pour out of it.

The ladybug hears the oncoming herd of insects and goes outside to investigate, becoming furious. Wilbur grabs a thorny vine and drags it through the ladybug’s legs, shredding his crotch to pieces. God, I twinge each time I see this gag, it’s painful (but in a good way).

Diving into a bucket that’s floating in a pond, the ladybug whips out a rifle and shoots aimlessly, hoping to scare off his attackers. One by one the bees take off like fighter jets, shooting alcohol and peas (above) to scare him off. I love the sound effect of the machine gun noises in synchronization with the peas being fired off. Treg Brown would become the best sound editor later on in the 30s, but Bernard Brown and Dale Pickett did a great job here too.

One group of bees is armed with dynamite, which they drop onto the ladybug below. The bucket explodes and falls into formation around the spider, forming a guillotine. The bees celebrate and iris out as a possible execution is left up to our wandering minds.

This wasn’t the most riveting of Merrie Melodies, but it certainly wasn’t the driest either. It had a good plot going on, which seemed to be even more of a focus than the song. I wonder if this is when they were starting to feel obligated to incorporate songs into the cartoons? The music is addictive as always, and there were some fun visuals towards the end as things picked up. “I’m not crazy... much!” is a great line. Ultimately, it isn’t the cartoon to end all cartoons, but there are worse out there. I feel pretty indifferent towards it, I’ve seen it once and probably won’t see it again, but don’t let that deter you if you’re curious!