Release Date:

March 12, 1955

Main Character(s):

Sylvester, Hippety Hopper

Summary:

A mouse who resides in the lighthouse is unable to get some sleep due to the lighthouse’s beam constantly deflecting off of a clock’s pendulum and shining into his hole. He unplugs it which alerts the Scottish lighthouse keeper and his parrot, Polly. It also causes a ship to crash and lose some of its cargo. One of these includes Hippety Hopper, who was intended to be shipped to Australia in a crate. The keeper has Sylvester, also residing in the lighthouse, to go after the mouse and plug the light back in, only for him to encounter Hippety, who he mistakes for a giant mouse. The real mouse also teams up with Hippety to thwart Sylvester.

That’s Not All, Folks:

The production number is 1328 and was released as a Merrie Melodie.

This cartoon marks the end of an era as it is the very last cartoon that was animated by McKimson’s old unit, due to them all having left during the brief studio shutdown and never returning (this was also the reason why a few other animators and personnel left and never came back. It’s also very coincidental that ). As a result, this is the final Warner cartoon to have any involvement from Herman Cohen, Phil DeLara, and Rod Scribner. Charles McKimson would only co-write “Dime to Retire” for his brother, released six months later, but then leave after that (several hardcore Looney Tunes fans believe that McKimson’s work declined after he lost these animators, but I disagree with that heavily, since he still turned out as much gems as Jones and Freleng did, and his new animators- Ted Bonnicksen, George Grandpre, and especially Warren Batchelder, among others- were all very good. I also highly doubt that people who like to complain about the animation quality in particular cartoons could do hand-drawn animation better than any animator from the Golden Age).

Sid Marcus wrote this one and it is also the only Hippety cartoon written by him. Coincidentally, Marcus became a director at Walter Lantz in the 1960’s and he reused this cartoon’s premise for the Chilly Willy cartoon, “Lighthouse Keeping Blues” (1964).

The cartoon was originally titled “Lightmouse Keeping”.

For this and the next Hippety cartoon, “Too Hop to Handle” (1956), only Hippety’s name is above the title even though Sylvester is clearly the star of these cartoons.

The animator draft for the cartoon can be viewed here.

The keeper pronounces “mouse” as “moose”.

The total of seconds that Polly ends up counting is more than 70,000 which is around 19 hours (a scene in the draft reveals that Polly was originally shown counting in his sleep at the end, but was obviously cut from the finished cartoon). In real life, this would be unrealistic, since the cartoon takes place entirely at night.

Favorite Scene:

The fight in the door on the side of the platform the beam rotates on that switches between Sylvester beating up on the mouse and Hippety beating up on Sylvester (this is also the last ever scene that Rod Scribner animated at Warner Bros).

What Happens in This One:

The title card and credits are shown across a camera pan over to the lighthouse at 11 pm with the beam rotating across the sea. Part of the beam’s rays are seen reflecting off a lantern and also keep deflecting off the swinging pendulum on a clock (animated by Herman Cohen) and shining into a mouse hole, depriving the mouse who lives in the hole of any sleep. The mouse goes out of his hole, climbs the stairs all the way up to the top (animated by Phil DeLara) and pulls the plug for the beam out (animated by Rod Scribner). Once it turns off, Polly starts squawking, “Light’s out!” several times, which wakes the keeper, who exclaims, “Great Scott!” He runs up the stairs and realizes, “It’s that crazy moose again!” Polly follows him and repeats, “Crazy moose” a few times (animated by Cohen)

To make matters worse, a ship bound for Australia crashes into the rocks on the shore due to the light being out, also spilling four crates (animated by Cohen). From the ship, the captain yells up to the keeper, “Hey! What are you trying to do, wreck us!? Keep that light on!” The keeper apologizes, “Sorry, captain!”, to which Polly repeats, “Sorry, captain. Sorry, captain”. The captain then calls to his crew, “Avast there, mate! Hard the stern!” before the ship reverses. The crate that Hippety’s in begins bouncing around before it smashes open from hitting a rock. Hippety is also shown to have a tag around his neck, “Baby Kangaroo Deliver to: City Zoo” (animated by Scribner).

The keeper finds Sylvester sleeping on a rug and angrily pulls it out from under him, waking him up. “Get up, ya good-for-nothing lazy pussycat! While you sleep, that crazy moose is loose in the hoose!” Polly walks past squawking and repeating, “Crazy moose loose in the hoose! Crazy moose loose in the hoose!”, before the keeper tells him, “Quiet, Polly!” Sylvester pushes Polly aside before he is instructed by the keeper, “Now go on upstairs and get that moose before he turns the light off again! Hurry up, now! Hurry up, now!” (animated by DeLara)

Sitting on a perch, Polly repeats, “Hurry up, now! Hurry up, now!” Not amused, Sylvester tells him, “Ah, shut up! I can catch that mouse in a matter of seconds!” Polly responds with, “Matter of seconds! Matter of seconds!”, complete with lisp. Sylvester begins to get even more annoyed with him, “You said what I heard me, blabber-beak! Just count the seconds and I’ll show ya!” Polly begins doing so as Sylvester ascends the stairs (animated by Cohen). From outside, Hippety spots Sylvester- who sulks to himself, “All that fuss over that little squirt of a mouse”- climbing up the stairs and enters the lighthouse, following him from behind all the way (animated by Charles McKimson).

Getting to the top, Sylvester puts a mousetrap under the cord, “I’ll fix that pipsqueak of a rodent. Then I’ll be able to get some sleep around here”. He attaches a string to the mousetrap and sneaks off to the side so the mouse can’t see him. When the mousetrap presumably snaps on the mouse, Sylvester pulls “him” and the trap into view, only to find that it snapped shut on Hippety’s tail instead, “Alright, ya little squirt! Now, I-I-I-I-IIIIIIII-!” His jaw drops to the ground upon seeing how large Hippety is, before he falls to pieces and then runs all the way back down screaming (animated by Charles). After running past Polly who has gotten to 543, Sylvester enters the bathroom, uses a stool to reach the medicine cabinet, “I’m seein’ big mice! Can’t be! No mouse that big!” (animated by DeLara), puts two water drops on both eyes from a pipette, and takes numerous pills, “Huh. I must be getting lighthouse eyes! Ooh! It’s stigmatism! That’s what it is! S-S-S-Stigmatism! I need vitamins! Vitamins! Big mouse! Whoo! Vitamins! Vitamins! That’s what I need! Vitamins!” (animated by Charles)

The mouse frees Hippety’s tail from the trap and whispers something to him, which Hippety nods his head at. They both hop over to the cord, where Hippety helps the mouse yank the cord out, causing the light to go off again. As they both shake hands, Polly begins calling, “Light’s out!” several times (animated by DeLara), which alerts Sylvester, who’s still showering himself with pills. Polly spots Sylvester and reminds, “Get the mouse! Get the mouse!” Sylvester replies, “I’ll get him this time! Just a matter of seconds! Keep countin’, buster!” Polly has now reached 3,687 (animated by Cohen).

Sylvester goes back to the top, puts the plug back in, and hammers several nails near the plug, so it can’t be pulled out again. He hides behind the platform the beam is rotating atop while holding a club, and sees Hippety’s shadow hopping into view with a mallet. His attempt to jump out and swing the club at him is thwarted due to it actually being the mouse bouncing up to him with the mallet. The mouse hits Sylvester on the foot, causing him to scream in pain, before he runs into the doors on the platform. Sylvester bangs on the doors, demanding, “Come on, ya little pipsqueak! Open up! Open up! I got ya cornered! Open up before I-”, only for Hippety to appear in the mouse’s place and kick Sylvester, who flies backward and lands in a bucket. The doors then open and close several times with Hippety and the mouse taking turns making an appearance. Sylvester exclaims, “Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! It must be my white blood corpuscles!” He then interrupts the rotating switcheroo and begins to beat up on the mouse, “Hold it, wise guy!” The doors periodically open and close again to reveal either Sylvester beating up on the mouse or Hippety beating up on Sylvester. This ends with Hippety repeatedly kicking Sylvester in the face and then sending him tumbling down the stairs (animated by Scribner).

Polly has gotten to 70,843 when he spots Sylvester tumbling back down the stairs, causing him to remind again, “Get the mouse! Get the mouse! Get the mouse!” Dazed, Sylvester instructs as he goes up the stairs again, “Keep countin’, buster! I’ll have that mouse quicker than you can count up to Jack Robinson!” (animated by Cohen)

This time, the mouse cuts the cord into three pieces before running off. With Polly again squawking, “Light’s out!” numerous times, Sylvester sees the angry keeper beginning to walk up the stairs with a stick, intending to beat Sylvester up with it. “I’ll fix that good-for-nothing pussycat!” Spotting the cut cord, Sylvester finds that he can’t get the two cut pieces attached to both ends to connect (animated by DeLara). The lights then suddenly go on (animated by Cohen), before it’s revealed that Sylvester has resorted to putting himself in the middle of both ends, getting a tremendous electric shock in the process. With Polly having said, “Light’s on!” several times, the keeper goes back down the stairs, “Hmm. Rogue of a cat! He’d better KEEP it on!” Polly repeats, “Keep it on! Keep it on!” (animated by DeLara)

Taping up the cord, Sylvester has become annoyed with having to fix it, “‘Lights out!’, ‘Light’s on!’, ‘Light’s out!’ I’m a pussycat, not an electrician! Sakes!” He realizes too late that the mouse has wrapped up a large dynamite stick in the cord, as he shakes his head rapidly numerous times for it to not explode. Since it’s inanimate, it explodes anyway, completely destroying the cord beyond any possible chance of repair (animated by DeLara). The keeper charges up the stairs and beats Sylvester up offscreen (animated by Cohen).

Later that night, the keeper is seen back asleep (animated by Charles), with the mouse and Hippety both sleeping in the interior of the platform, and with the mouse using part of Hippety’s fur as a blanket and propping his pillow against his stomach. The light is shown to be apparently fixed, before it’s revealed that Sylvester has been hooked up to work as the new lighthouse beam with him holding a battery pack attached to his tail and the beam emitting from his eyes as he perpetually rotates around atop the platform. “I never thought just being a pussycat could be so complicated!” (animated by Cohen)

Where Can I Watch It?

At toontales.net!

Carrot Rating:

🥕🥕🥕🥕 ½