161. Ain’t We Got Fun (1937)

Release date: May 1st, 1937

Series: Merrie Melodies

Director: Tex Avery

Starring: Mel Blanc (Cat, Elevator Operator), Billy Bletcher (Mobster Mouse), Berneice Hansell (Mice), Oscar O'Shea (Old Man, Elevator Operator), Blanche Stewart (Old Mouse)

The last cartoon we saw, which was another Tex cartoon, was the behemoth Porky’s Duck Hunt, which revolutionized the fate of Looney Tunes. Pretty big shoes to fill after the fact! 

Unfortunately, the shoes aren’t filled all the way. Nevertheless, we’ll explore why. As the old saying goes, when the cat’s away, the mice will play (which is coincidentally the title of a 1938 Tex cartoon as well!)

The opening shot is a homely multiplane pan across a sleepy, snowy landscape at night, underscored by a comfortable piano accompaniment. Hone in on one house in particular, where a cat lounges in an armchair, positioned right in front of a roaring fire. Another long pan across the household, where we meet our antagonist.

Though this is a Blue Ribbon reissue, thus covering the credits, Chuck Jones and Bob Clampett get the animation credit for this one. Chuck Jones’ work is noticeable right away as we spot his animation of the old man, shuffling along the vicinity of the house, the newspaper in his fist shaking from the old man’s tremor. “Yeah, there’s nothing like a good ol’ easy chair when a body’s tired.” 

Our old man displays his endearing, warm-hearted charm as he approaches his cat, abusing it by smacking the cat repeatedly with the newspaper, ordering the cat to “git!” The poor cat settles on a rug for comfort instead, nestling down for the night. Then, Tex displays some succinct timing as a book is thrown out of nowhere, konking the cat right on the noggin. 

Perhaps the only one who enjoys the cat’s suffering more than the old man is a mouse tucked away in the safety of its mouse hole, peering into the living room with glee as it tinkers around slyly. Carl Stalling’s accompaniment in conjunction with the mouse’s furtive footsteps create a combination that we would be seeing in many a cartoon, but primarily in Friz Freleng’s cartoons (the ever sly genius Sylvester comes to mind). With the cat asleep, the mouse boldly takes a few strides outside its territory, waving its little paw in front of the closed eyes of the beast. No reaction. The mouse skirts back to the hole, not taking any chances. Now sure that the cat is out like a light, the mouse gleefully grabs a paper and pencil and scrawls “the cat’s asleep”, fashioning the message into a paper airplane.

Quite an impressive shot as the mouse tosses the airplane inside the mouse hole. We’re met with an elaborate vertical pan, showcasing the structure and inter-workings of the household. One mouse catches hold of the plane at the other end, opening it up. His mouse buddies crowd around to read the message. Can it be? 

Berneice Hansell’s giggles overlap the underscore of the title song as a slew of mice stream into the mouse hole tunnel, arriving to the lookout mouse. The eager chattering ceases as the guard mouse shushes the crowd, indicating for everyone to move in slowly. 

Tex experiments with shadows quite a bit in this cartoon, spicing up an otherwise slightly tedious routine. The mice creep along the walls, their shadows dramatically enhancing the risk they’re all taking by being out. A clever Avery-ism as a cuckoo clock chimes, threatening to blow the cover of the mice. The mice shush the cuckoo bird, and the bird, understanding, pulls out a clock of its own and showcases the time around to the invisible crowd.

Freleng-esque trepid footsteps in conjunction with a minor key arrangement of “Ain’t We Got Fun” transforms into another Avery-ism as the mice suddenly whoosh past the sleeping cat. The cat wakes up, shivering from the draft left behind, and closes the open window, returning to its slumber.

Now, the mice are free to roam and play as they please. The swarm all pack into a collection of mousehole elevators, an elevator operator ushering them in. In the elevator, they make various stops in the pantry to gorge on some foods. “First shelf: cheese, bananas, groceries, and jams. Second shelf: candies, donuts, breads and pies. Third shelf: things and stuff.” A relatively mild gag, more so cute than funny. 

Nevertheless, the gag redeems itself with a kick: all that’s left in the elevator is a polite, elderly woman and the operator. A bit of gallows humor as the granny inquires “Could you tell me where I can find the mousetraps, please?” The operator is rightfully horrified.

The mice gorge themselves silly. One mouse chews his way through a loaf of bread, marching along with his gigantic belly. One of the more clever gags involves a gang of mice playing pool, a slice of bread as the tables, peas as the balls, and the open mouths of the mice as the pockets. One spare pea is left, and a mouse “breaks character” to slide over and catch it in his mouth. A mouse narrowly avoids being decapitated as it eats a line of cheeses from a row of mousetraps, another mouse attempts to uncork a bottle with his tail and ends up getting stuck in another bottle, one mouse indulges on a hearty helping of salami, and so on. All while this is happening, billy bletcher lends his voice to a mobster mouse warning one of his companions. “ ...and if the cat comes, give us a whistle like this–” he demonstrates, and his confidant nods.

Raucous laughter inevitably wakes the cat from its slumber. The guard mouse takes notice, but at the worst time: just seconds before, he had been stuffing his mouth with crackers. The mouse attempts to whistle, but his efforts are in vain. Whistling with crackers in the mouth, impossible. Tex would reuse this gag in one of his last WB entries, The Cagey Canary, down to the whistler’s face growing red. 

Someone cries “The cat!”, and the gang of mice carving a turkey disperse just in time for the cat to shove its body through the turkey, narrowly avoiding its targets. Now furious, the cat/turkey hybrid bounds through the kitchen in all of its ridiculous glory. Just as it attempts to dive through an open mousehole, the doors of the hole shut the cat out, sparking a daze. An animator switch later, the mice retreat into their now open hole, throwing various food items in the grasp of the cat to frame him.

More Chuck Jones animation as the old man wakes up, finding his dirty, no good kitten sitting in the kitchen with a turkey for a body, candy cane in mouth, balancing a pile of food items. The kitchen is a total wreck. The old man chastises the cat–there’s a neat angle as all we see is his gangly, wrinkled, almost threatening finger jabbing at the cat, talking about how this is the last straw. 

The poses of the cat are lovely, from Stan Laurel whimpering to dubious shrugs. Staging here could be comparable to the early Sylvester and Tweety cartoons, which are quite Tom and Jerry-esque in nature (Tweety Pie comes to mind).

With that, the old man picks up the innocent kitty by the scruff of his neck, removing the cat from the turkey and kicking it outside into the snow. Another Avery-ism as the old man yells out the door “Give ya a home and what do ya do? You eat it! Now GIT!” A slam of the door in finality… or not. Like in I Love to Singa, the old man throws the door open to blow a raspberry at the cat. The cat retaliates with a raspberry of his own. 

A clever dissolve as we fade away from the cat parking its butt in the snow to the old man parking his butt in his armchair, complaining about how that old pussycat’s always in his chair. Tex is a man of eloquent syntax as he displays with the old man’s rant of “good for nothin’ lazy old cat old cat lazy good for nothin’ old lazy cat.” Back to the mice, the guard mouse from before writing a new paper airplane message, this time with a bigger announcement: the cat’s gone. As the eager mice mow down the messenger as they scramble out of the hole, we finally segue into the eponymous song number.

Definitely a highlight of the cartoon. The song itself is a classic, used since the Bosko days of Warner Bros. cartoons. Lyrics are of course outfitted to the plot of the cartoon. The song is happy, peppy, with a nice jive. A nice opening pan of the mice playing makeshift instruments (like a pipe as a saxophone). Tex experiments more with his shadows as we watch the singers dance and sing the song, shadows growing bigger and smaller and creating quite the theatrical effect. Albeit brief, this is certainly one of my favorite song numbers we’ve seen thus far, in terms of song AND animation, and it definitely constitutes a watch. 

Now, the kitchen is a rowdy, hectic zone, so loud that the old man is woken up from his slumber. He ambles into the war zone, and is promptly pelted by various grocery items upon arrival. Intriguing camera shots for sure, especially the overall layout of the kitchen. The scene is reminiscent of the Merrie Melodies of 1934-1935, primarily How Do I Know it’s Sunday, where weaponizing groceries saves the day in that cartoon. Interesting to note, bits of the music cue are reused from the fella with the fiddle when the mouse scrambles to disguise his home, but it’s not from the same recording. 

The old man scrambles outside to safety, where he meets his kitty “friend” he kicked out. Any notions of contempt and disgust are dropped from the old man as he attempts to coax his cat back into friendliness, hoping the cat will kill the mice. However, the cat’s having none of it, shaking his head and crossing his arms in defiance. Great posing. 

Now, a few of the mice have congregated at the feet of the old man to witness the drama. One of the mice remarks “See? The old cat’s not coming back!” With that, the mice pour gas on the fire to spark some drama, taunting “YOU ARE A ‘FRAIDY CAT! YOU ARE A ‘FRAIDY CAT!” to the cat. The cat, visibly angered, zooms inside, barreling the old man over as it attacks the taunting mice. The other mice aren’t too thrilled with the arrival of the cat, the guard mouse hurriedly tweeting on a whistle to signal the danger that approaches. Various mice yell “The cat!” (including a very tiny mouse with a super high pitched squeak, a gag from the Bosko days) The cat corrals the mice into their hole, and marches away proudly, tail in the air in triumph. 

Mice now gone, streaming out of the exposed cellar doors and into the cold night, the cat settles down in the old man’s armchair after a night of hard work. We end just where we started, the old man ambling to the chair, remarking “Yeah, there’s nothing like a good ol’ easy chair when a body’s tired.” he notices the cat in his spot and raises his newspaper, preparing to strike, when he halts. 

In a change of heart, we get this lovely, hilarious, and absurd visual of the old man crawling on the rug, circling around in the manner of a cat and cozying up, complete with a blank stare of heavy realization that this is his new norm. He pops his head out to tell the audience “I ain’t such a mean old man after all, am I?” An offscreen book answers his question as it knocks him right on the head. Iris out.

This is an interesting case. While the cartoon had moments of pure Avery-isms, this feels more like a Friz Freleng cartoon from 1935 or 1936 rather than a 1937 Tex cartoon. The structure, look, and feel all seem very Freleng-esque, but even then towards the more milder Freleng entries. With that said, it’s not a bad cartoon. It had some wonderful moments: the title number is such a wonderful mood raiser, and gags such as the gallows humor of the old woman asking where the mousetraps were and the end with the old man curling up on the rug were great. 

But for a Tex Avery cartoon, this is a weaker entry on his part. I suppose half of it is because his previous cartoon is one of the most influential cartoons to exist, and coming down from that high isn’t very easy. It just doesn’t quite feel like a Tex Avery cartoon. The cat is the one with the most Avery influence, whereas the mice look straight out of a Freleng cartoon. Nevertheless, it’s a mildly entertaining cartoon that isn’t bad, but I would hardly call it a masterpiece. There’s no raging need to go out and watch this one, but watch it by all means if you want. 

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