Release Date:

January 29, 1944

Main Character(s):

None

Summary:

A spider who can’t stop laughing at his own cleverness tries to catch a tricky fly.

That’s Not All, Folks:

The production number is 1-13, the first Merrie Melodie in the 13th release season.

The spider sounds reminiscent of Tex Avery’s voice and laugh, but it wasn’t Avery who voiced the spider as he had already been at MGM for over a year at this point. “Cartoon Voices of the Golden Age” reveals that the spider’s voice was provided by radio actor Cy Kendall.

This is the first cartoon to use the 1944 blue rings with a red background and the first cartoon with the finalized Merrie Melodies logo.

“Huckleberry Duck” is prominently featured in the cartoon as the spider’s theme tune while “Siberian Sleighride” plays during the chase in the neon sign.

What I Like About This One:

The spider first referring to the fly as “dead pigeon” (animated by Gil Turner).

The spider’s attempt at leaving a sugar lump out as bait and tying it to a string backfires as the fly pulls it up with him leaving the spider hanging from the string. The fly cuts the string (animated by Gerry Chiniquy) which sends the spider falling onto the table with the impact causing all of the sugar lumps to land on his head. The spider admits, “Well, that’s one on ME!” (animated by Jack Bradbury)

Watching the fly doing acrobatic tricks with an invisible trapeze to the tune of “Umbrella Man”, the spider calls him “a poor man’s Bugs Bunny!” (animated by Manuel Perez) The fly then falls so the spider attempts to have him land in his open mouth but the fly just pulls out the spider’s tongue and causes it to snap back (animated by Richard Bickenbach).

The spider then acts as a trapeze only to be given a wacky kiss by the fly and realizes that the fly has stuck several matches between his toes and is about to give him a hot foot. Sweating in fear, the spider hopes the fly wouldn’t dare but he does it anyway (animated by Ken Champin), sending the spider zooming down and laughing, “LOOK, I’M A ZERO!” before landing on the table again and getting hit with the sugar lumps (animated by Bradbury).

The spider’s next attempt involves dipping buck shot into red paint labeled “Sugar-Coated Kandy Kolor” to make them resemble pieces of candy and then putting out a plate full of them (animated by Turner; this scene in my opinion is the best ever usage of “Huckleberry Duck”). After eating them, the fly is confronted by the spider tauntingly asking, “And how does my little man relish the goodies the big bad spider left for him?” The fly then can’t fly away due to the weight of the buckshot so he runs instead (animated by Bickenbach) as the spider brings out a large magnet. This attracts all of the knives and meat cleavers in the house all of which head towards the spider blade first! The spider narrowly misses them but another meat cleaver slices off part of his “shoe” (animated by Chiniquy).

After the spider sees that he still has all his toes intact, he sees the fly posing as the bride on a wedding cake. The spider laughs, “He kills me!” and then decides, “I’ll kill HIM!” (animated by Chiniquy) He stands next to the fly posing as the groom. The fly substitutes himself with a dynamite stick that explodes in the spider’s face (animated by Turner).

After a chase into a neon sign (animated by Perez), the spider eventually catches the fly and while sharpening his knives, tauntingly sings “Would You Like to Take a Walk”, including a substitute lyric, “Do you think you’ll get away?” But the fly points to the date on the calendar which is labeled as “Meatless Tuesday”, meaning the spider can’t eat any meat that day. The spider just looks at it and says “Oh”, before he realizes to his horror that this chase was all for nothing with him shouting several “NO!”’s and even runs to the Capitol building to protest this! The cartoon ends with the spider yelling to the President offscreen, “You can’t do this to me! You just can’t! You can’t! You can’t! You can’t! You can’t!” (animated by Bickenbach)

Where Can I Watch It?

At archive.org!

Carrot Rating:

🥕🥕🥕🥕