Release Date:

July 6, 1940

Main Character(s):

Little Blabbermouse

Summary:

At a closed drug store at night, a WC Fields tour guide mouse gives a tour to several mice via a sky ride in a basket. He gets particularly annoyed by Little Blabbermouse, a little boy mouse who talks very fast and won’t shut up.

That’s Not All, Folks:

The cartoon was given a Blue Ribbon reissue. “A Tisket A Tasket” played under the opening credits:

Supervision: I. Freleng

Story: Ben Hardaway

Animation: Richard Bickenbach

Musical Direction: Carl W. Stalling

Blabbermouse and the Fields mouse would later appear in the last cartoon of 1940, “Shop Look and Listen”.

This is the last Warner cartoon to have Ben Hardaway involved in any way before he left for Walter Lantz. He would briefly return to Warner Bros. as a storyman for only one cartoon, “A Bone for a Bone” (1951).

A model sheet for this cartoon reveals that Blabbermouse was originally going to be named “Parcheezer”.

The restored print uses the incorrect ending theme.

What I Like About This One:

Fields offering marshmallows as soft cushions (animated by Cal Dalton).

The basket initially going off without Blabbermouse before Fields puts something down for him to stand on in order for Blabbermouse to stop yammering about how “up it goes and I was still standing here just like this”.

The various products Fields presents: vanishing cream that literally vanishes, a bottle of reducing pills that gets so thin to the point that the sticker label no longer fits and the cork pops out, sleeping powder boxes that are literally sleeping, a bottle of smelling salts which sniffs around like a dog, cough medicine that has a coughing fit, a giant malt being a billboard of an overly large milkshake, a “little squirt” (a small bottle of perfume), a shaving brush that is shaving itself, a bottle of “Krazy Mineral Water” (the “Wild Man of Texas”) going crazy to the tune of “I’m Just Wild About Harry” (Blabbermouse asks if all bottles do that), and a “rubber band”, rubber bands playing “It Looks Like a Big Night Tonight” while military shoes march in rhythm.

Various items coming to life and performing an appropriate tune associated with them: clocks sing “Start the Day Right”, an order pad sings “I’d Love to Take Orders from You”, powder puffs sing “Shake Your Powder Puff”, coins pop out of a cash register to sing “We’re in the Money”, a pink pill bottle sings “You’re the Cure for What Ails Me”, a tobacco box (which has an angel half and a devil half on each respective end) sings “Half of Me Wants to be Good”, and “Singing in the Bathtub” is heard when a bottle of bath salts is taking a bath.

The tour abruptly ends when Fields shows off the various mousetraps. When the tourists see a cat behind Fields, they all turn white in fear and everyone except Blabbermouse runs away. Blabbermouse tries in vain to warn Fields about the cat before Fields sees for himself what he kept hitting. “Whoa, who let him in? Due to conditions of which we have no control, the tour will be temporarily discontinued,” Fields says as he and Blabbermouse get away from the cat and make it back into the hole (Richard Bickenbach animated this whole scene).

In the end, Blabbermouse asks for his money back, but at this point, Fields is so fed up with Blabbermouse’s constant yammering that he shoves a jar of alum on his mouth which makes a puckering noise. Blabbermouse starts to question Fields’ actions (“What did you do that for, mister? Did I say something that made you mad? I don’t see why you’d get mad at me; I’m not mad at you at all. All I did was ask for my money back-”) before he starts talking incoherently as his lips shrink.

Where Can I Watch It?

At archive.org!

Carrot Rating:

🥕🥕🥕🥕