96. Mr. and Mrs. Is the Name (1935)

Release date: January 19th, 1935

Series: Merrie Melodies

Director: Friz Freleng

Starring: Tommy Bond (Buddy), The Debutants (Chorus)

First cartoon of the new year, and what a year it will be! Buddy and Cookie star in this as playful mermaids--an unassuming premise yet a very monumental decision. Beforehand, no Looney Tunes stars (Buddy, Bosko) starred in Merrie Melodies and vice versa. The lines have been crossed!

The cartoon opens with a nice shot of rolling waves crashing against some rocks. I love the two-strip technicolor look, I think it’s extremely charming and adds a nice palette. Especially with complimentary colors such as red and green! The pink reflections and sea foam add a nice contrast with the white reflections and green water. Elsewhere, three mermaids sing “Mr. and Mrs. Is the Name” with substitute lyrics, a hula mermaid dancing along to the music and a sawfish playing its nose/saw with a mallet.

A dance break as some clams underwater serve as castanets, accompanying the dancing lobster from How Do I know It’s Sunday. It’s still a good scene, the animation nice and added colors freshening up the monotony.

Meanwhile, a group of mermaid children are dancing and playing about, including two familiar mermaids: Buddy and Cookie. The thing is, they don’t refer to each other by names, and could very well be different characters. However, the boy is the spitting image of Buddy, and Cookie looks similar to her brief Jack King redesign. Not to mention, their voices are the same as always. It’s a safe bet to assume it’s them. Plus, it makes my life easier instead of just typing “the boy” and “the girl”.

Buddy and Cookie are engaging in a game of tag, some nice animation as they swim towards the foreground and then the background. Buddy tags Cookie by smacking her in the butt and laughing at her abrasion. She doesn’t find it too funny, and lets Buddy know by smacking him hard. Very funny and amusing to watch Cookie stalk away on her mermaid fins, her cheeks puffed out in defiance and fists clenched. Such attitude! I love to see it! 

Downtrodden, Buddy sighs and mopes around, banging his head against a ship in the midst of his oblivious wandering. Delighted at his find, he eagerly swims back to Cookie (occasionally jogging on his fins, a nice touch) and drags her along to show off. Cookie is initially reluctant, but her own inquisitive nature prevails as she and Buddy stick their heads inside a hole.

Wide, spacious, and mysterious: the perfect place for curious kids to investigate. Almost immediately, they come across a chest spilling over with treasures. Cookie rifles through the coins, and a lobster gets stuck on her finger. The perils of greed! She shakes it off and continues her search, fancying herself a big necklace.

Buddy has other priorities, rifling through a clothes trunk. He sports a bowler hat, a cane, and a mini mustache, the spitting image of Charlie Chaplin as a mermaid. Buddy doing the Charlie Chaplin walk on his fins is highly amusing, even though it runs a little long.

Cookie on the other hand continues to bling herself up in jewels, sauntering over to a piano and posing. An imitation of Greta Garbo, maybe? She plays the piano, but to no avail. The hammers have no strings to hit. The strings are dislodged and hide behind the piano—cookie fixes it right up and launches into a rendition of “Mr. and Mrs. Is the Name”, accompanied by a Harpo Marx lobster. Friz works his musical timing as two jolly roger skulls from a pair of pirate hats dance along to the music, timing absolutely spot on. The song ends as a fish swims out of cookie’s mouth on the final note.

Always have to have mischief of some sort. A rather menacing octopus meanders about, overhearing the jaunty piano music. It swims inside the ship, and we hear a scream. Sure enough, the octopus emerges with Cookie in its clutches. Buddy overhears the commercial and swims out of his Chaplin wear—which is a shame. That’d make for an interesting fight scene with the garb on! The octopus exerts all the effort it can to swim away faster, buddy trailing close behind as he fashions a motor to his back.

After an extended scene of more racing and Cookie beating the octopus over the head with a fishbone, buddy catches up to the octopus and the fight ensues. Great sound synchronization as the octopus swims around, smacking buddy over and over again. The animation is very fast and frenetic, what I like to see. Can’t go wrong with an Orlando Martin trombone gobble (or 3) as the octopus imprisons Buddy under its tentacles, rising up and smacking buddy with its body over and over again.

Buddy retaliates by poking it with a stick, swimming away into a pipe, octopus following. He ties the tentacles to various holes in the outside rim of the pipe, effectively keeping the beast at bay. For good measure, Buddy swings a log at the stuck octopus, shooting him out the other side and right back in again. Very creative and amusing! Cookie comes from out of the shadows and gives buddy a peck on the cheek for his bravery. He flushes all shades and tints of red, so preoccupied with his bashfulness that he gets conked on the head by the log he had been swinging. An equal and opposite reaction for every reaction, bucko! Cookie catches him and we iris out.

A very cute cartoon indeed, but not much else beyond that. The colors were nice and Buddy and Cookie, albeit dull, were likable enough. Buddy’s Chaplin imitation was definitely a plus, as was Friz’s knack for musical timing, demonstrated especially with the skulls dancing. Some scenes ran a bit long, but nothing to make me say “this is dreadfully boring”. An average cartoon, but average used in a relatively positive connotation. Maybe worth the watch.

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