Mouse Wreckers
Encyclopedia
Mouse Wreckers is a 1949 Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...

 short directed by Chuck Jones
Chuck Jones
Charles Martin "Chuck" Jones was an American animator, cartoon artist, screenwriter, producer, and director of animated films, most memorably of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts for the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio...

 starring Hubie and Bertie
Hubie and Bertie
Hubie and Bertie are animated cartoon mouse characters in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. Though largely forgotten today, Hubie and Bertie represent some of animator Chuck Jones' earliest work that was intended to be funny rather than cute.-First film:Jones...

 in their first pairing with the redesigned Claude Cat (an early, primordial version of the cat appeared in 1943's The Aristo-Cat). The short centers around Hubie and Bertie's attempts to move into a new home by chasing Claude out of the home. Mel Blanc
Mel Blanc
Melvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc was an American voice actor and comedian. Although he began his nearly six-decade-long career performing in radio commercials, Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros...

 voices Bertie and an uncredited Stan Freberg
Stan Freberg
Stanley Victor "Stan" Freberg is an American author, recording artist, animation voice actor, comedian, radio personality, puppeteer, and advertising creative director whose career began in 1944...

 voices Hubie. The title is a pun on house wrecker or homewrecker, where a house is destroyed, often figuratively, by a single person. Mouse Wreckers was nominated for Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for 1948, but lost to The Little Orphan
The Little Orphan
The Little Orphan is a 1949 American one-reel animated cartoon and is the 40th Tom and Jerry short, released in theatres on April 30, 1949 by Metro-Goldwyn Mayer. It was produced by Fred Quimby and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, with music by Scott Bradley...

, a Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry are the cat and mouse cartoon characters that were evolved starting in 1939.Tom and Jerry also may refer to:Cartoon works featuring the cat and mouse so named:* The Tom and Jerry Show...

 cartoon.

The cartoon was loosely remade as Gopher Broke
Gopher Broke
Gopher Broke is a "Looney Tunes" cartoon animated short starring the Goofy Gophers and the Barnyard Dawg . Released November 15, 1958, the cartoon is directed by Robert McKimson. The voices were performed by Mel Blanc and Stan Freberg...

in 1958, and later as the Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry are the cat and mouse cartoon characters that were evolved starting in 1939.Tom and Jerry also may refer to:Cartoon works featuring the cat and mouse so named:* The Tom and Jerry Show...

cartoon The Year of the Mouse
The Year of the Mouse
The Year of the Mouse is a Tom and Jerry cartoon released in 1965, directed and produced by Chuck Jones, with animation by Dick Thompson, Ben Washam, Don Towsley, and Ken Harris.- Plot :...

in 1965 (also written by Maltese and directed by Jones).

Plot

Scouting out a new home, Hubie calls over Bertie, who begins to gaze into it before Hubie slaps Bertie to make him realize that before they can move in, the cat (Claude Cat, who has an award for Best Mouser - 1948 along with other mouser awards), must be removed first. Realizing that the task will not be easy, Hubie comes up with several ways to chase Claude out, all of which are designed to drive him crazy, having Bertie do each of the tricks.

First, Hubie lowers Bertie down the chimney on a fishing line. At the bottom of the chimney, Bertie grabs a piece of wood, smacks Claude in the head with it, and is then quickly yanked back up the chimney. When Claude just goes back to sleep, unable to figure out what happens, Bertie is lowered again, pumping air into Claude Cat. When Bertie is yanked back up the chimney and the pump is released, Claude ends up flying all over the living room, hitting all of the walls and ceiling before landing hard on the pillow on which he was resting. Claude then takes the bottle of catnip
Nepeta
Nepeta is a genus of about 250 species of flowering plants in the family Lamiaceae. The members of this group are known as catnip or catmint because of their effect on cats—the nepetalactone contained in nepeta binds to the olfactory receptors of cats, typically resulting in temporary euphoria...

 he had hidden in an overhead lamp and tosses it out the window then he mutters.

With the logs removed from the fireplace, Hubie lowers Bertie and a dog (resembling Hector the Bulldog) in a doghouse down the chimney. While the dog is sleeping, Bertie pulls out the dog's lower lip such that it snaps back on him, but not before Bertie is pulled back up the chimney. Seeing only Claude, the dog viciously beats up Claude before returning to the doghouse, with the doghouse then yanked up the chimney. Completely nerve-wracked as a result of the beating, Claude then runs to the bathroom to take a dose of nerve tonic. While Claude is in the bathroom, Bertie then inserts a lit firecracker into Claude's pillow, which blows up not after he returns to it. Claude then nervously gulps down the remainder of the nerve tonic.

Next, Bertie returns down the chimney and runs a piece of string throughout the house, out of it into a water catch drain, down a ladder, and then back into the house, with the other end of the string attached to a rock on top of the chimney. Once Bertie ties the end of the string to Claude's tail, Hubie tosses the rock down the other side of the chimney, which sends Claude flying throughout the house, out of it and back into it, and eventually slamming him into a trash can lid, which begins to drive Claude crazy.

Claude then reads "Psychology of Dreams" by Sigmund Fried
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...

 for advice on dealing with what Claude thinks are bad dreams. When Claude falls asleep, Bertie places earmuffs over his ears, while Hubie and Bertie work on nailing everything that would be in front of Claude that was on the floor in the living room to the ceiling, and painting the ceiling like the floor and vice versa. When Claude wakes up, he sees this and thinks he is on the ceiling (when he is really on the floor) and jumps up to what he thinks is the floor (which is really the ceiling). Claude is surprised when he grabs a bottle of nerve tonic, only to open it and see it "rise" to the floor. Claude then becomes confused when he enters into the kitchen, where everything is still right-side up. Further driving Claude mad is when he looks out one window where an illusion is given to make Claude think he is upside down, and then looks out another to make him think he is sideways, and then out a third to make him believe that the house is under water. Finally broken, Claude runs, screaming, from the house and hiding into a nearby tree.

Having accomplished their mission, Hubie and Bertie return down the fireplace, and roast cheese over an open fire as the cartoon fades out.

Censorship

  • On The Merrie Melodies Show (syndication and FOX
    Fox Broadcasting Company
    Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...

    ), the part where Claude is beaten up by the bulldog is shortened.http://looney.goldenagecartoons.com/ltcuts/m
  • Along with the above edit, the version that aired on ABC's The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show the part where Claude is caught in a firecracker explosion and heavily drinks from a bottle of nerve tonic was cut.http://looney.goldenagecartoons.com/ltcuts/m
  • In the last scene where Hubie and Bertie toast cheese in the fireplace, there is an overlap of end music and dialogue followed by an abrupt black-out. This has appeared in all prints (theatrical and television), prompting the possibility that a scene was edited before it was released to theaters.http://looney.goldenagecartoons.com/ltcuts/m

Availability

  • Mouse Wreckers is available, uncut (sans the end sequence restored), on Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2
    Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2
    Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2 is a DVD box set that was released by Warner Home Video on November 2, 2004. It contains 60 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons and numerous supplements.-Related releases:...

    , Disc 2 and on Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection
    Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection
    Due to the success of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection and Popeye DVD series, Warner Home Video issued a 3-DVD set on February 12, 2008 showcasing the various animation properties that they own including their home-grown product Looney Tunes...

    .
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