Release Date:

August 21, 1937

Main Character(s):

None

Summary:

After closing hours in a hat shop at night, mice come out to hang around and play music. A boy and girl mouse are in love but a villainous rat kidnaps the girl, so the boy has to call up the other mice to help him stop the rat.

That’s Not All, Folks:

The cartoon was given a Blue Ribbon reissue. The song that played over the opening credits was “Put On Your Old Gray Bonnet”. The credits were as follows:

Supervision: Fred Avery

Animation: Sid Sutherland and Virgil Ross

Musical Direction: Carl W. Stalling

Avery did a similar cartoon a year later called “The Mice Will Play” (incidentally, that one was the last Warner cartoon of 1938).

What I Like About This One:

The name of the hat shop: “Snobby Hatte Shoppe”.

The boy mouse yelling “Anybody here?” and upon hearing no answer, goes up a mini-elevator in the wall and turns on the light, but gets knocked off by one of the light’s buttons and lands on a top hat.

The boy and girl mouse performing the title song is quite charming.

The blue bonnet and yellow straw hat coming to life and acting as a married couple with a bunch of “little ones” that look like them.

The mice changing colors of the spotlight on the boy and girl mouse by using colored caps in front of a hat with a light on it.

The scene with the three “Ratz brothers” is the highlight (brilliantly animated by Irven Spence).

When the rat kidnaps the girl, one mouse’s pants fall down while blowing the bugle.

When the boy mouse informs the Sargeant about his girl being kidnapped, the Sargeant exclaims, “Why doesn’t somebody tell me these things!?”

The rat being captured and imprisoned in a knight helmet.

Where Can I Watch It?

At archive.org!

Carrot Rating:

🥕🥕🥕 ½